Free Mummy Knew by Lisa James Page B

fucking see it now, shown up in front of all his family. Not on your fucking nelly.’
    By this time Diane had moved back out again, so Cheryl went to stay with her. That left me and Davie.
    ‘Can we go over Nanny’s?’ I asked.
    ‘No, you fucking can’t,’ Mum snapped. ‘I’m sick of them knowing all my fucking business.’
    Davie and I were locked in a bedroom. Mum gave us a bottle of coke, some crisps and a packet of peanuts and instructed us to stay put until everybody had gone. She even left a bucket in case we needed the loo. The music was blaring into the early hours and our flat sounded like the pub on the corner did on special nights like New Year’s Eve. We could hear other children playing with our toys out in the passageway, but it seemed that Mum was ashamed of us because we weren’t allowed to join in.
    Mum and Dad got married at a registry office one day when I was at school and, as with their ‘engagement party’, none of us was invited. I had always wanted a proper family with a mum and a dad, and I would have loved to go to their wedding and maybe even be a flower girl, but it was made very clear to me that as far as I was concerned nothing had changed.
    Life continued pretty much as it always had, except that over the weeks and months I noticed Mum’s belly was getting bigger. At first I thought she must have been eating too much, but then I worked out that she was having a baby and I waited for the day when she would tell me. I would have asked hermyself but I was shy. Talking about babies would mean talking about sex in a roundabout way and I was far too embarrassed to do that. Even though I had grown up hearing every grunt and groan Mum and Dad made in their bedroom and seeing Dad’s pornographic magazines lying around, I was still embarrassed about such things. My face reddened as I imagined the moment Mum would sit me down and tell me I was going to have a little brother or sister. But in the end, I was saved the embarrassment because it was Cheryl who finally said the words, straight after Mum had been carted off in an ambulance, screaming and clutching her huge distended belly.
    ‘Lisa, do you know Mum’s having a baby?’
    Of course I knew! I had turned nine years old two months before.
    The baby was a little girl and they named her Katrina. I thought she looked like a perfect little doll. She was so tiny her veins showed through her paper-thin skin and I remember staring at her for ages in her little Perspex cot, which was parked at the side of Mum’s bed. I adored her straight away and couldn’t wait for Mum to bring her home, but the hospital insisted on keeping them both in for a while. At the age of forty-three, Mum was classed as an older mother, so the hospital wanted to take special care of her for a few days, and she had smoked through the pregnancy so Katrina was born on the small side.
    While they were away, Dad wasn’t at home much because he was either out celebrating in the pub or else up at the hospital breathing gin fumes all over little Katrina’s sleepy head. With him out of the way, Cheryl felt safe enough to bringJenny over to the flat. It was her first visit since Dad had moved in with us five years before, and I remember her walking around from room to room, her mouth slack with horror as she saw how we were living. As usual the flat was a mess, but Jenny seemed particularly upset to see the various dents and holes in walls and windows.
    ‘What on earth’s been going on over here?’ she kept asking.
    I tried not to think about how angry Dad would be if he came back and found her there. I was terrified, jumping at every sound, but filled with excitement too as I dragged Jenny around showing her things like my special cupboard where I kept some brightly coloured plastic carrier bags stuffed with everything from elastic bands to felt-tip pens.
    ‘Come and look at my collections, Jenny,’ I cried and she duly admired them, telling me that everything looked