MOTHERS' DAY - BUT DO I DESERVE IT?!

 

Mother’s Day. But do I deserve it? Both my novels take a long, challenging look at the issue of mothering.

FLAMENCO BABY follows Yolande, a single musician deafened by her body clock after yet another romantic rejection. During the course of the book she looks at most of the options… Here she is after her gay best friend Jeremy has just declined to be a sperm donor:
 

Love and sex. Or rather love, sex and trust: was there any hope of finding one man who could offer all three? On the evidence so far, no.

But I’ll be seeing Jeremy later, I told myself, and he might still change his mind… I busied myself tidying up the living room, practised a tricky accompaniment.

Then they came, and I was glad to be distracted by Olivia’s grinning chubby face as she played The Entertainer; Romilly’s wilfully wacky take on the Grade One piano pieces; chatty Alison, who used to come in a tartan school pinafore dress but was now my height and considerably better made-up. Then there was Michael – already producing a beautiful tone on the flute, an intelligent boy with a dry sense of humour. Sensitive. The sort of child we could have if…

Love, sex, trust and… children: an even taller order. In fact, I didn’t know anybody who seemed to have achieved all of these – or not with anybody I considered worth having them with. That was the problem; nobody was ever going to match up to Jeremy. He’d spoilt me, set a standard, queered my pitch – ha-ha – literally.

Perhaps I’d have to separate the factors. Love and trust with Jeremy, intermittently sharing him with a man; sex with whoever was healthy, attractive and available for it; and a baby with… well, whoever was healthy, attractive and available for it. Possibly the same man, initially. What did they call it on that website? Natural insemination by the donor.

I should have been leaving for the rehearsal, but I was back in the second bedroom, the computer helping to conjure the father of the room’s future occupant. I clicked on the sperm donor website I’d saved in my favourites – under a discreet ‘sd’, as if keeping it a secret even from myself. But up came a message: The traffic limit for the site you are attempting to access is exceeded. There were obviously bloody thousands of us; you’d think there’d recently been a war, there was such a dearth of Mr Rights.

 

And here she is considering dishonourable solutions to her dilemma:

 

I pulled it from my pocket. ‘It’s [ex-boyfriend] David. Helen must have called him. I’d love to see you. Lunch soon? Please call. Four kisses.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ Jeremy said. ‘Perhaps you should.’

‘Should what?’ I snapped the phone shut. ‘Although, actually… it’s not a bad idea. I’m off the pill now…’

‘What? That would be horrendously deceitful, I can’t believe you—’

‘He’s been horrendously deceitful—’

‘My God, you can’t really be thinking of becoming a sperm bandit.’

‘A what?’

‘Sperm bandit. That’s what they call women who trick men into fatherhood.’

‘Really?’ I grinned, seeing an image of myself pulling at David’s clothes with a scarf over my mouth. ‘I’m joking, you idiot!’

‘Hm. Just leave this baby thing for a few months and concentrate on getting healthy, learning flamenco, feeling good about yourself. Then you’ll be able to think straight and make some decisions. Okay?’

I read out my reply to David. ‘Thank you. Will call and have lunch in…’ How long is it going to take me to get my head together, d’you think?’

‘Working full-time at it? Well let’s see… three months? April. Spring. A fully-fledged flamenco bailora by then, dando la verdad, as they say. Giving the truth. Sounds about right, doesn’t it?’

 

Meanwhile back in MEN DANCING, Rosie has moments of feeling she has two more children than she should have had; many things in her life have come easily to her, but motherhood isn’t one of them. I can relate to this. The baby stage – hopeless with the paraphernalia (once trapped my finger in the pram for a full fifteen minutes). The toddler stage – Jesus. Only survived by spending every possible moment within the sticky, reassuring walls of soft-play gyms. Primary school age – conversation, books, music, football… at last, the motherhood I’d dreamed about. But by then I had a second child, who – although now delightful at 14 – has Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit; we had a chequered and often painful first ten years. The adolescent stage – I never discuss work-in-progress! But if you read Men Dancing you’ll form an opinion as to my success there. I’m hoping to redeem myself with the young adult period.  

Meanwhile I’ll leave you with this not completely fictional excerpt in which Rosie takes her Aspie son to his second dance class:


His shoulders were going up: not a good sign.

‘That’s Charles,’ he said loudly. Oh dear. The same height as Kenny, meaning he’d be two years older and therefore about four years ahead in social skills. Charles walked past with a gracious nod and sat down to change into his dancing shoes.

‘I want those,’ Kenny said.

‘Please may I have. Of course we’ll buy you some, once we know you’re...’ Once we know you’re not going to get kicked out. Because otherwise they’ll hurt me every time I open your wardrobe – just like the taekwondo outfit, Arties overall and Dolphins swimming cap do.

The teacher arrived with her register and cash box. She was vast; do these ballroom dancing teachers so miss competing, when they get older, that they eat themselves into elegant battleships? But fat and jolly she was not. She took my four pounds without a word and left me wondering whether I was supposed to watch the class, in case Kenny became difficult, or wait in the cramped reception area – where pictures of her and her protégées encouraged you to question whether you were wasting her time.

I took a seat just outside the door. Kenny was talking at the black-girl-with-wet-hands, who smiled briefly and moved away. Battleship was demonstrating the steps, her thickly muscular legs improbably supported by dainty high-heeled feet. They were asked to pair up. In my salsa class the out-numbered men are immediately grabbed like musical chairs, but for these pre-teen girls this potential new partner, a real boy for heaven’s sake, seemed to be surrounded by a negative force field.

There was music now – a passionate Latin number that could have been a tango. A couple of older girls arrived early for the next class and pushed the door open wider.

‘A new boy – look.’

The other girl nudged her out of the way. ‘Oh yes.’ She watched for a while. ‘Charles doesn’t look too happy.’

So I wondered whether Kenny had latched on to Charles and bored him to bits. Or taken offence at a misread facial expression and stuck his leg out. Either way, distraction of the class star would be a heinous and probably unforgivable crime.

The girls sat down to share a bag of crisps so I took up their position. But I couldn’t see Kenny; either he was on the far side of the room or he’d been told to sit down.

So I went back to my chair and texted one of the most talented male dancers in the country. Then sat daydreaming about him teaching my oddball son to dance salsa... with one of his sister’s sunny-natured daughters. That’s it; she and her children would be over from Cuba and staying with him in his flat, in the spare room. He’d move the sofa over to make space and put on a Cuban CD, show Kenny how to lead his niece put his shoulders down and look like a man...

‘Kenny’s Mum?’ She turned on her heel before I could answer.

Shit. I was tempted to say no, we’re leaving, fuck-you. After all, it wasn’t school; I didn’t have to listen to her. But I followed her into the studio, where other parents, I now noticed, had been sitting on chairs watching.

‘I just need to catch Charles’ mother,’ she said, sailing over to her.

‘Did you have a good time?’ I asked a spinning Kenny.

‘A good time? It’s good time, good timing, time to be good...’ I nodded and looked away. He was on overdrive; there was no chance of getting anything sensible out of him.

She’d floated back.

‘Have you ever done any of this kind of dancing yourself?’

‘No, I er…’ 

‘You’re going to have to learn.’

Ah. Here we go. Like Taekwondo. I’m going to have to be here at every lesson, a sort of Dance Learning Support Assistant, and if I can’t she won’t have Kenny in the class.

‘Or Kenny could come for one-to-one.’

Aha. Like the swimming teacher. At a monstrous price but that’s what Disability Living Allowance is for. But Kenny would want to dance with a little girl, not a battleship.

‘Or maybe both, because it’s early days I know... but I’m looking at Blackpool.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Junior Dance Festival. Probably with Keisha.’

And I thought, male dancers: a rarity. Musical chairs. Probably any boy that can be sow’s-eared into it will do. ‘He’s only had two lessons. Don’t you think it’s a bit soon to tell? And... my husband did tell you, about Kenny...?’

‘Yes, but if he wants to do it... Show Mummy your waltz Kenny.’ She patted his shoulders firmly. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do on these,’ she said. I nodded.

She pressed the button of the music player and counted him in. He took hold of her and waltzed her round the room as if she were Cinderella.