In A World Gone Mad: 8 May 2020

Friday 8 May 2020

My birthday came and went. I was surprised and touched by Andy. I didn’t expect anything from him—and don’t doubt for a second that there was some nagging from his dad on that score—but he told me that I’m like a mum to him, with everything good and bad that it brings. I loved that. Andy and I have had our problems, he’s a typical teenager—now. Two years ago, he was A-typical and heading himself into a load of trouble.

Max blames himself for leaving the family home after his marriage broke down. I couldn’t disagree more. His kids all have their issues anyway that date way before his divorce. I think Andy would have got into a bad crowd anyway and he’ have gone down the same road with or without his father’s influence.

Max and I had two blissful years before his family came crashing in on us.  Max was split in two, he was loving the freedom of our relationship and being able to do what he wanted for the first time in twenty-five years—we had a great social life. I’m close to Marty, Stella and the kids, less close with Col and his side, but we still get together, and I speak to them most weeks—but my family never encroaches on our lives.

Now, we aren’t free, we’re like a married couple with responsibilities. It’s hard doing all this adulting.  During the early days, Max missed his family and carried a lot of guilt. We were free, we worked hard and built our home and we played out, gigged or had people round for dinner several nights a week.

Things with his family went haywire. Belle has an ant’s nest full of issues. In some ways I’m closest to Belle than any of them. I love her daughter, Ocean, as my own granddaughter. If ever I’m asked, I have seven grandchildren, not six. However, to say Belle is highly strung would be like saying chocolate is just okay. We get regular calls where she cries and wails like a three-year-old. She’s used to being daddy’s girl and knows how to manipulate him. She has a potty mouth—but only when screaming at her dad about something, and her dad has never once told her to shut up. The most unlikeable thing about Belle is that she’s a know-it-all—she knows everything about everything and will shout anybody down if they have a different opinion to her.

The other big problem with her, is she has Munchausen’s Syndrome and is a hypochondriac and she possibly has Munchausen’s by Proxy which is something we keep a very close eye on where Ocean’s concerned.  

Four times a year, Belle will have a cold, ring an ambulance and huff and puff until they take her into hospital. Because she cries wolf, they have to take her because there may be an occasion where she really has something that needs attention. And so, we’ll be called out in the middle of the night. Everything has to stop for a Belle drama. We know the score, we stop off at the damned expensive Shell Garage, because invariably when she’s been bored, had a sniffle and done this, it’s the early hours of the morning. In case she’s kept in—which she never is— We buy her three packaged sandwiches, three bottles of still Lucozade and three packets of crisps, at the cost of nearly twenty pounds.  This is for a woman of twenty-six, behaving like a three-year-old, who thinks she’s at death’s door, but we couldn’t possibly have her go without her nine items of food and drink. She will have spoken to us on the phone and puts on a fabulous show, to hear her, you would believe that she’s dying. The last time she did it, and because she has to be more inventive every time, she had thrown up blood and filled the toilet to the rim twice. Of course, she hadn’t but there’s no way to prove it.

I sit up in bed and roll my eyes, ‘Here we go again.’  Max’s ex-wife will have nothing to do with it. She refuses to get drawn into Belle’s medical dramas—and I don’t blame her. So, it’s Annie’s mother who goes round and drags Ocean out of bed at some stupid hour of the night to take Ocean to her house.  

We meet the ambulance at the hospital and Max is always worried sick because this time it sounds real. I agree, it does sound real the woman sounds as though she’s dying—but I’m more cynical and have been a mother myself. Every single time—without exception—that we’ve got there, Belle has gone from dying swan—to telling the nurses how to do their job by the time she gets to the hospital. She’ll be laughing and flirting with the ambulance men, who all know her by name, and making enemies of the nurses who have done actual medical training to get where they are—not dental nursing. And we get there half asleep or we are pulled away from a gig or a night out and she’s sitting up laughing and joking. They never keep her in because there’s never anything wrong with her—but we all go through the motions.

We worry about Ocean sometimes—who, considering her mother’s issues, is the most incredible little girl. Belle, by her own admission, will have times of ‘depression’ when she doesn’t cope with Ocean well.

We had a made-up miscarriage last year, and a couple of made-up suicide attempts where Belle called an ambulance and was taken into hospital, but nothing was done because they couldn’t find any evidence from tests that she’d taken any tablets.

She sleeps around, and on first dates. Ocean is introduced to a new boyfriend every other week.

She speaks to her dad as though he’s the five-year-old and if she doesn’t get what she wants out of him every second sentence begins with, ‘I’m telling you now, you will….” And I get so annoyed with Max for letting her speak to him like that. I’ve spent three years biting my tongue for Max’s sake, but we all know that one day Belle and I are going to hit the skids. And when I verbally take her apart, she won’t know what’s hit her.

We say our Belle comes in two flavours: when she’s good, she’s very, very good, and when she’s horrible she’s rotten.

The other side of Belle is amazing. She is kind, caring and considerate. She’ll come here and decide to cook for everybody. She once did my sugar skull makeup for a fancy-dress Halloween do. She puts herself out to be helpful and loving. I love this Belle and we get on great. She has brought Ocean up on her own and what a credit to her that child is. Their family is lucky in that grandma—Annie’s Mum, Janet— owns a children’s nursery, so Belle was able to go into fulltime work without having to worry about childcare costs.  Despite having a young child, Belle has put herself through a three-year apprenticeship to become a dental nurse—she qualified about six months ago. It annoys me when both she and Max tell people that she’s a dentist. She isn’t, she’s a dental nurse. Ocean is always immaculately turned out. I’ve never seen that child anything but perfect. She’s bright, such a clever little thing and precocious. She can be a sulky bum when she’s tired—Nana Sarah, calls her a flutterbat when she’s in a grump. She’s a flutterby when she’s our sweet, delicious Ocean and a flutterbat when she’s tired and cranky. Despite our occasional concerns about Belle and her occasional disassociation form Ocean—for the most part she’s a fantastic mum. Ocean couldn’t be as bright as she is if Belle didn’t spend a lot of time with her. Belle is a good singer, and Ocean has perfect pitch, she knows all the words to all the songs and that’s down to Belle.  It’s hard being a single mum and Ocean is perfect.

I’m very proud of what Belle’s achieved—she’s got her issues—and needs a lot of attention— but she’s a good girl on the whole.

Andy went south at the same time as Belle—when Dad left home. He was always a Grade-A student at school and loved football. Max was a football coach for fifteen years.  Andy dropped out of football, and out of college and discovered weed and alcohol. A few weeks later he graduated to Coke, Ket and Phet. His nickname around the village was, Sniff. Not happy with taking it, he started selling, and at sixteen was the biggest dealer in the village and as far as Kendal where his supplier was based. He was making hundreds of pounds a week from selling drugs.

Andy was the second child to take to me. He had nothing to do with his dad, or me for the first year and blamed me for taking his father to a different town. We met a couple of times at family do’s run by Kila—and Andy decided that I am a laugh. We dragged him here kicking and screaming twice after psychotic episodes on drugs. Every time Annie would go to turkey to see the boyfriend, she’d leave Andy home alone and in charge of Krystal. She wouldn’t allow the kids to come to us and did a lot in the early days to poison them against us. Every time she went Andy would have a house party and go off the rails. Krystal who still has nothing to do with me, and very little to do with her dad, would go to Belle’s and we’d go through and drag Andy back to ours to sober up. Or we’d pick him up from the police station when they let him out. It’s a miracle that he isn’t in prison now, but we’ve always  managed to get him off on a caution. He’s on his last chance with the police.

After staying with us a couple of times, Andy and I became close. He listens to me, when he won’t listen to his dad.  I told him two years ago he was at a crossroads and he had two paths to take. The left path would have him in prison for life or dead in a gutter and the right path would lead him to sort his life out. He was at that point where he was dealing thousands of pounds worth of drugs and taking hundreds of pounds through his nose a week. It was that bad. He was psychotic and paranoid to the point that his mental health was on the verge of being permanently affected.

I’m very proud of Andy. He’s turned his life around and is doing really well. We’ll have the odd slip up here and there, but he’s a good kid and doing okay.