Single Mother - Samantha Hayes Page 0,1

‘Really, it’s fine.’

Mel reaches out a hand to Kate’s forearm. She’s thin, Mel thinks. ‘You know I’ll listen and—’

‘Mum!’ Kate says – not a shout, exactly, more a choked hiccup. She snatches her arm away.

‘OK, OK, love.’ Mel gets up, scraping back the chair. She grabs the empty egg box and juice carton, cramming them into the recycling box, squashing everything down. Then, trying to appear busy, hoping that by backing off Kate will open up about what’s been bothering her these last few days, she sorts through the pile of junk mail that has accumulated on the kitchen counter.

‘Where does all this stuff come from, eh?’ she says, trying to sound bright. She doesn’t want the day to get off to a bad start. A worse start, she thinks, wondering how she’s going to tell Tony, the landlord, that she can’t quite make the rent this month. ‘Pizza flyers, takeaway menus, and look…’ She holds up a leaflet, waving it about. ‘This one is offering to jet-wash our driveway.’ She shakes her head. ‘Didn’t they notice we live in a first-floor flat?’

One by one, Mel stuffs the papers into the recycling box: local free newspapers, letters to ‘The Occupier’ – most likely trying to sell her insurance policies for appliances she doesn’t own, or pre-pay her own funeral. She hesitates over a couple of envelopes, tentatively slicing open the flap with her finger. When she sees they’re bills – red reminders – she tosses them into a separate pile on the counter. They’ll have to wait.

Then a smart cream envelope catches her eye – better-quality than the usual junk mail. Plus it has her actual name and address printed on the front, and a local return address on the back. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she quickly tears it open, half pulling out the contents.

‘Someone’s certainly gone to town to get my attention with this,’ she says, rolling her eyes at the wodge of wasted paper. When she sees it’s nothing more than what appears to be a legal scam, she stuffs that into the recycling box too.

‘How do they get away with it?’ she says, shaking her head. She drains her coffee mug. ‘No doubt they want cash upfront before I “claim what’s mine”.’

Kate stares up at her, dark circles under her eyes and the whites tinged pink. ‘Claim what’s yours?’ she says, offering a little smile.

She’s trying to appear normal, Mel thinks. For my sake. If Kate got her own way, she’d stay off school today. Stay off school for ever. Mel has to admit, she’s tempted to allow her a day’s respite – but then what about her work? She can’t afford to take a day off, nor risk upsetting Dragon Boss. At twelve, Kate is too young to be left home alone. It kills her to know those girls at school are giving her daughter such a hard time. Kills her, too, that Kate won’t allow her to speak to the head teacher to get the bullying dealt with.

‘It’ll make it ten times worse, Mum. I’m begging you, please don’t say anything,’ Kate had pleaded the first time she’d opened up about what had been going on, admitting why her belongings had gone missing, why one side of her hair had been hacked off, her blazer torn, why there were bruises on her shins. ‘They’ll probably move on to someone else soon, when they get bored of me.’

Since that day, Mel had been fighting every cell in her body not to go steaming into the head’s office at Portman High. It was getting harder each day to keep the promise she’d made to Kate.

‘Claim what’s yours, as in?’ Kate continues, scraping her plate. She knows as well as Mel that food is not to be wasted. Several times in the last month, Mel has gone without dinner so Kate can eat.

‘Didn’t look to find out,’ Mel says, shrugging and bagging up the recycling into two bulging refuse sacks. She dumps them by the door ready to take out when they leave. ‘Right, love, go and finish getting dressed and I’ll drop you at school on the way to work.’

Kate clears away her plate and heads off to her bedroom. A few minutes later, she reappears, her hair neatly brushed and secured in a long ponytail down her back, her tie straight, her blazer buttoned up – admittedly now on the snug side, stretching across her shoulders. The sleeves are riding up past her