The Way We Heard: Wannabe (1996)

THE WAY WE HEARD: WANNABE

(1996)

Friday evening, and Brin was bang on time, as usual. Say what you like about him, and Fran often did, he was never late for Albie.

He stood at the front door, dark hair flopping over his forehead, a huge smile on his face when he saw his little boy. “Wotcher big man!”

Fran stood aside as four-year-old Albie careered down the passage. “Daddy!”

Brin scooped Albie up. “All ready then?” he asked.

Albie nodded excitedly.

Fran said, “Could I just have a word?”

“Sure.” Brin dragged his eyes away from Albie.

“Albie,” said Fran, “have a quick wee, before you go.”

“Don’t want a wee.”

“Have a wee, Albie.”

Brin raised his eyebrows. Then he smiled back at Albie. “Mummy’s right, Alb. Quick wee, then we’ll be off.”

Pouting, Albie made his way to the bathroom. Fran turned and led the way down the passage into the kitchen.

“Is anything wrong?” Brin’s voice was tinged with apprehension. “Is he all right?”

Fran looked out to the square of back garden. “Yeah, he’s fine.” She turned to face Brin. “Yesterday, we were in BHS. There was a big queue to pay. And Albie says, like he was projecting to the back of the stalls, he says ‘Bloody hell, Mummy, look at that fucking queue.”

Brin’s eyes widened. His lips trembled. Then he burst out in a peal of laughter.

“It’s not funny, Brinsley! I didn’t know where to put myself. Everybody looking at us. It’s a wonder they didn’t call social services or something. I thought I’d die.”

“Oh come on, Fran. It’s what kids do!”

“Only if they’ve heard it somewhere. Honestly, Brin, you promised, after the Sex Pistols thing, you promised…”

“I haven’t played him the Sex Pistols since.” Brin considered. “Although he may have heard it round my Dad’s. I did say, but you know what Dad’s like.”

“This isn’t some old record, Brin. This is language he’s heard somewhere, from you or Suzie or your Dad, or somewhere.”

“Well, as I remember, Fran…”

“I do not swear in front of him, Brin. I never swear in front of him.”

“You can’t blame Suzie. She always swears in French. She’s got perfect English, says she even dreams in English now, but the swearing, always French. So if you get a merde or putain, it’s us. Otherwise…”

“Just make an effort, Brin. Just make a fucking effort.”

“I do make an effort, Fran. Suzie and I both make an effort, only it isn’t an effort because we both love the bones of him, and nothing’s an effort when it comes to him.”

You sanctimonious prick, Fran thought. “Just…”

The toilet flushed and Albie appeared in the passage, grinning. “I had a wee!”

Brin beamed. “Good man! Right, we’ll be off then. Give Mummy a kiss.”

“Did you wash your hands?” asked Fran.

Albie looked down, then up, then nodded.

“Albie…”

“It’s fine,” said Brin. “Of course he washed his hands. Because he’s a clever boy. Aren’t you, Albie?”

He’s not a bloody dog, thought Fran. She knelt down and hugged her son, pressing him close. “Have a lovely time with Daddy. See you on Sunday.” She looked up at Brin. “Five o’clock.”

“Sure.”

She watched them get in Brin’s Ford Fiesta. Brin carefully strapped Albie into the child seat, then turned for a final wave. He knew she’d be watching.

Fran knew that for the next two days she’d miss Albie every minute. The entire house would be dominated by an absence where his presence should be. She’d miss the scent of him and the sound of his footsteps and his chatter. At the same time, it was so bloody good not to be on stand-by every bloody minute of the day.

She went back to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Its whirr echoed in the silence. She turned on the radio.

“Oh bloody hell.”

Girl Power, yes, Fran considered herself all in favour of Girl Power. But a bunch of girls shrieking nonsense about whatever it was Wannabe was about, did not seem especially powerful to her. Spice Girls. What kind of a name was that? A bunch of good-looking young women sprinkled on bland pop crud to make it more palatable. And now they had to have nicknames, to diminish them even further. Baby Spice. Baby??? What did that say about the men in suits marketing them?

Fran added milk to her coffee, stirred, and turned the radio off.

She went into the lounge, settled herself on the sofa, and sipped her coffee.

Albie’s Playdays video was lying on the carpet, its box on the coffee table. His Buzz Lightyear Action Figure was under the coffee table. Brin and Suzie had got it for him for Christmas. He loved it. Fran’s Mum had got him a Postman Pat lunchbox, for nursery, and some Fireman Sam pyjamas. He didn’t really need the lunchbox because nursery provided lunch, but he carried his Duplo round in it, and he liked the pyjamas. Fran had got him a wooden toy garage from The Early Learning Centre, with a set of wooden cars. It was upstairs in his room. Brin and Suzie had also got him a remote-controlled toy car. He adored it.

Fran contemplated tidying away the video and the Buzz Lightyear, but there was no-one she had to show an example to and she wasn’t likely to fall over either of them.

She contemplated the weekend.

There was an invitation from her sister to join a girls’ night out on Saturday. This would be Ziggy’s. It was always Ziggy’s. Kate was addicted to Ziggy’s because it had been her first experience of clubbing, back in the eighties. Good Grief, was it already ‘back in the eighties?’ What the fuck happened to ten years? Kate had met her husband there, and they used to play decent music there then. Now they probably played The Spice Girls, while Kate left her husband at home to mind the kids while she went for a girls’ night out.

I’m twenty-eight. I’m four years younger than Kate and ten years older. I do not want to go clubbing.

There was tonight’s EastEnders to watch, and she’d rented Four Weddings and a Funeral from Blockbuster’s, and there was a Tesco Chicken Tikka Masala For One in the freezer. Had there actually been life before microwaves? And she had a bottle of Blue Nun. All to herself.

Was this it, then? Work three days a week. Albie, housework, washing, shopping, cooking (seriously, was there life before microwaves?) seven days a week unless it was Brin’s weekend, being bloody knackered after Albie went to bed, being bloody knackered when she woke up. Was this it?

“You need to get yourself laid,” Kate had said to her, the last time Fran allowed herself to be inveigled into Ziggy’s. “You must be shrivelling up inside.”

“Fuck off, Kate.”

“How long is it since whatsisname, Ben? Was it Ben? Or was he the one before?”

Ben was the one before. There had been one before that, Jonathan, and he’d been nice, but he was awkward around Albie, although he did try. Then there was Ben, and he was nice, but it was obvious he was thinking long-term, future kids, and Fran did just want to get laid. And then there was Mitch, and he was – not nice, but bloody beautiful and bloody good in bed and fuck Brin for hearing on some grapevine or other that Mitch had beaten up his last girlfriend and slapped her kid around too. So that was that.

Brin had been very understanding. Suzie had been very understanding. They called it understanding. Fran called it patronising. Poor Fran, so desperate she fetches up with some arsehole and doesn’t even check if he’s suitable to be around a little boy.

I’d have killed him if he’d so much as looked at Albie the wrong way.

She and Brin were never supposed to be anything permanent. Not joined together by a child for the rest of their lives. They’d known each other at college. After college they’d bumped into each other again, had some fun, seen other people, split up with other people, had some more fun. They’d been more mates than lovers. Then she’d met Ralph, and thought he was special, and she and Brin agreed to stop fooling around. They’d had one last thanks-for-the-memories shag, and there was Albie. And there was Ralph, disappearing into the distance.

Brin had offered to marry her.

“Are you mental? Can you see us married? We’d agreed never again, before this.”

“I just thought, if you felt you needed it…”

“I don’t need to marry you, Brin. I just need you to be a Dad to your child.”

“I’ll always be that.”

She’d doubted it, but so far he’d come up trumps. He met Suzie, and they moved in together, and she was marvellous with Albie, and Albie adored her, and Fran had no doubt that quite soon Brin and Suzie would marry and have their own kids, and Albie would probably adore them too.

While Fran would still be eating Chicken Tikka Masala for one and cradling her own personal bottle of Blue Nun.

I should have married him, she sometimes thought. She had to admit, she’d never come across a better one than Brin. But Brin wasn’t what she wanted. She did know that. She had no idea what it was she wanted, but she knew it wasn’t Brin.

She’d wondered if she might try a woman. Her supervisor Donna was a lesbian. Donna’s girlfriend, Shona, sometimes picked Donna up from work. From what Donna said, being in a lesbian relationship wasn’t that much different from being in a straight one. You still argued about whose turn it was to cook, and clean out the cat’s litter tray. It didn’t sound nearly as exotic as Fran had imagined. Neither of them dressed like Marlene Dietrich or sang like kd lang. Donna was fucking useless at karaoke. Shona knitted jumpers.

Sadly, Fran didn’t fancy women. She’d tried fantasising, but it had proved singularly unfulfilling.

She sighed, and thought about the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Blue Nun.

She thought about Albie, and BHS, and for the first time she giggled. And Albie sitting in the little seat in the shopping trolley at Tesco’s, word perfect and full-throated, belting out  Anarchy In The UK. It probably had been Brin’s Dad. Both of them had probably been Brin’s Dad. The man had no filters.

He was a great guy though. A great father. A great granddad. He knew those whose opinions he cared about, and he didn’t give a fuck about anyone else. He knew what he wanted, and what he didn't want.

Fran thought: I may not know what I want, but knowing what I don’t want could be a start.

I don’t want to be a bitch over who gives Albie his favourite presents. I don’t want to care about who stares at us when he does something entirely, wonderfully, gloriously and innocently inappropriate. I don’t want to begrudge him time with Brin, or Brin time with him. And I don’t want to waste a single minute of being with him by worrying about all that shit.

She smiled and stretched, luxuriously, against the back of the sofa. At the moment nothing sounded more inviting than a Chicken Tikka Masala, a very large glass of Blue Nun, and a half hour of watching a bunch of pseudo-cockneys fighting it out in a pub.

Just for this moment, she really did know what she wanted. 

 

Picture by Remy Ryan Robert, free to use at Wikimedia Commons: File:Chupa Chups Spice Girls.jpg - Wikimedia Commons