The Undercover Mother

by Eirin Thompson

Genres: Women's Fiction; Family Life

Synopsis

A part-time job as an undercover store detective at the Riverside Shopping Mall seems ideal for our mum-of-three whose kids are now at school. Used to not being noticed at home, she feels she has the perfect credentials. The invisible eye of the Mall, she witnesses the good, bad and ugly of suburban life and it's not long before things become more complicated than the job fist promised. There's the mystery of the posh schoolgirl, and why security is turning a blind eye. Theres the question of dubious vote-casting in the bonny baby competition. Theres Zero FM star Lindy May, and the case of her missing brother. And then, bizarrely, she finds herself cast as the reluctant sleuth in an abandoned baby case from many years back . . . where nothing is quite as it first seems. With home life in growing disarray, the pressure begins to mount, and it's not long before everything starts to get a little blurry around the edges. The Undercover Mother is a hilarious, unflinchingly honest tale of an unforgettable heroine who's trying hard not so much to have it all but to keep intact the bit that she does have.

Release date: August 16, 2012

Publisher: Hachette Ireland

Print pages: 288

Sample

I really want this job.

*

Actually, I really need this job.

*

My elderly friends Kathleen and Lorna have so got into being Happy Grannies. Ever since they were paired up with Fiona, Simon and their two little sons, Nathan and Samuel, they’re busy all the time. They’ve stopped meeting me for milky coffees in Mumbles restaurant because of its lack of a comprehensive no-smoking policy and instead bring the boys to the brand new and completely smoke-free Tasty Ranch, which has opened beside the also relatively recent Riverside shopping mall. I’ve seen them through the window, in their complimentary paper cowboy hats, eating their chargrilled burgers. The only coffee the TR does is the watery black kind in paper cups with add-your-own fake milk portions.

I support the Happy Grannies scheme in principle. In an era when young families and grandparents often live many miles apart, it enables people to hook up with a substitute missing-half-of-their-equation in their own area. It even takes on people like Kathleen and Lorna, who don’t have any grandchildren of their own but would like to. I could have done with some of that when our children were very young and Eleanor and Terry, my parents, were far away.

Sometimes Lorna plays with Nathan and Samuel while Kathleen does Fiona and Simon’s ironing, and they go round to help Simon – i.e., to give Fiona peace of mind – while Fiona goes to aquarobics on Monday evening, and they babysit the boys on some Saturday nights so that Fiona and Simon can go out together to the cinema/theatre/pub/restaurant. And the whole thing is free of charge, because Happy Grannies is a voluntary scheme, which is supposed to reward the otherwise-redundant oldies with fulfilling new relationships and meaningful endeavour.

Simon, Fiona, Nathan and Samuel call my friends ‘Granny Kathleen’ and ‘Granny Lorna’. I call Simon and Fiona ‘jammy’, because I’m completely uncharitable and probably more than a bit jealous. Anyhow, now that Kathleen and Lorna have their new family, I hardly see them.

It was a big blow when the Listening Angels’ thrift shop shut, and all the harder because it happened so suddenly that our little team was thrown to the four winds. The investigative documentary Listening Angels? Listen to This! went out on a Tuesday night, and on the Wednesday morning our area manager, Mrs Nilsson, rang, telling us to shut up shop and go home until further notice. Of course, we didn’t go home, we went to Mumbles and discussed the situation, and it felt like the whole town was queuing up to talk to us, as if we were celebrities for the day, because it was such a big scandal and everyone wanted to know the inside story. But we didn’t know the inside story.

Everyone knows that the Listening Angels Trust was set up by a woman whose daughter killed herself because she’d no one to talk to, but we were as shocked as anyone to discover that our founder had not merely been flying herself to America for fundraising purposes but also to spend a week in Disneyland with her partner, his son and the son’s family on the Angels’ Visa card. She’d also moved into a country house with a pool and an all-weather tennis court and started driving a Porsche 911. It was hard to see who was going to buy Christmas cards, fridge memo boards and second-hand clothes from us now that it looked like the profits were being siphoned into that woman’s pocket. All the people who had been bringing us their old garments and bric-a-brac because we were on a side street with easy vehicle access, would probably revert to double-parking on the high street while they bundled their stuff into Oxfam.

I suppose it was worst for Margaret, our shop manager. She was the one among us who was on a wage for her work. When it became clear that the Angels had died a swift and irreversible death, she was fuming – even though it was common knowledge in the shop that she’d long been hoping to move across town to Save the Children. She’s working in a call centre, now, but I don’t think it’ll suit her as well as the Angels’ shop, when she used to disappear on supposed training days and Kathleen, Lorna and I covered her arse because we actually liked it better when she wasn’t there.

We also lost our resident male, the lovely Seamus Kelly. Seamus was an IT wizard and bodhrán enthusiast who took a gap year to come and work with us in our drop-in facility. He hadn’t been in place six months before the furore occurred and now he’s finishing off his time out learning how to weave tweed somewhere in Donegal.

I still have my Fridays in the market, helping former special-needs teacher Marilyn Softly on her environmentally friendly stall, but I don’t think she really likes me. I was merely the only unemployed person she knew when she was getting up and running, plus I’m pretty good at counting in my head, which Marilyn is not. And, anyhow, I don’t think she can be making much money at the stall: first there was the palaver with all the zips sticking on the Fair Trade hoodies, and then the stripy rainbow jackets ran into themselves in the wash and had to be refunded, and it also turned out that not as many people as Marilyn had anticipated wanted to buy biodegradable cornstarch bin liners when they could just as easily use their old supermarket bags for nothing. We sell a lot of recycled-vending-cup pencils, but not sufficient, I fear, to provide one proprietor and an assistant with a wage. I think if Marilyn felt she could trust one of the other stall-holders to keep an eye on her pitch while she took her toilet breaks, I’d be out on my ear.

Jill, on the other hand, my neighbour in the avenue where we live (and whose electioneering husband was last year the subject of a homosexual sex scandal) is thriving! Her modern ‘inset’ shop, Jill’s, now occupies as much space in her husband Trevor’s formerly old-fashioned shoe emporium as his leather brogues, black school shoes and zip-up slippers. Unfortunately I’m not groomed enough to seek a job from swish Jill, who is perpetually tanned and glamorously shod in shoes from her own stock. I definitely fit in better with the fingerless-gloved Fagin types at the market.

Meanwhile, I’m also missing Lucy, my next-door neighbour and sometime counsellor. She’s had another little turn and her husband Tom is afraid she’ll induce a second brain injury if she has any stress, so I’ve been politely banned from talking to her about my problems.

So, you see, with everybody amputated from my life in one way or another, I really need this job for someone to talk to.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the upheaval, I’m still on pretty good terms with him, but he has been working extra hours, which means I only get to see him in the weary little strip of time before bed when we’re both past wanting to talk and prefer to veg out in front of a crime drama. That’s another reason why I must get this job: so he won’t have to work extra hours.

Something that has not departed from my life, and probably never will, is, of course, the endless bloody housework, which, like the poor, will always be with us, and never seems to come anywhere near to completion.

And by the way, why is the easy way to put a double duvet into a duvet cover harder than the hard way?

* * *

Once again, I had forgotten that yesterday was News Day for year two, so our youngest child had nothing worthwhile to report because we had failed to provide him with any stimulating experiences at the weekend. For his news, he told the class that he’d had a Kit-Kat for breakfast. We had run out of Frosties. Grrrreat. This weekend we must find a forest park/agricultural show/vintage car rally/craft workshop to bring him to. We must also buy him a box of the sawdustiest, raisiniest muesli we can find. He has brought this on himself.

*

Last night’s crime drama was brilliant. It was my favourite, featuring maverick cop Jamie ‘Mac’ McDonald. Of course, all TV cops are maverick – except Detective Inspector Bill Worthington, who only presides over middle-class, bloodless murders in picturesque villages, the grit of his job is represented by him missing supper with his sainted wife – but Mac is yet more maverick than most. Even his good looks are original in a TV world of dark and handsome or blond and handsome: Mac is a flame-haired Celt with jutting cheekbones and eyes you’d love to meet. He’s an insomniac who reads Coleridge into the night, and the only person who calls him ‘Jamie’ is the sweet ex-wife with whom you suspect he’s still a little bit in love.

Except Mac doesn’t have time for love and marriage. He has cases to solve and nutters to fathom and track down, if he’s to protect the public from further acts of carnage as only he can. Naturally he’s surrounded by mediocrity – superior officers who lack his gut instincts about the villains, and junior colleagues who are fed up doing the donkey work in pursuit of Mac’s seemingly incredible hunches (even though last week Mac’s incredible hunch led them directly to the killer, and the week before that, and the week before that). Last night’s episode was the first of a two-parter so I still have the second half to look forward to.

*

Aaagh! Playground parent! Was this the morning I was supposed to be on duty? Quick, quick! Diary, diary!

*

Panic averted over playground-parent duty. I’m not on until tomorrow. This is a new scheme introduced by the Parents’ Committee to try to combat the morning-traffic mayhem. Until recently, all children had to be dropped off in the ten-minute window before the start of school because there were no teachers to supervise them any earlier; running around alone was deemed unsafe and, perhaps more inarguably, uninsurable. Consequently there were almost punch-ups every morning as everybody arrived at school at the same time and parked along both sides of the access road round the school gates. Women drivers were afraid to ease their cars on to the constricted roadway and men took to driving on the pavement. And when I say there were almost punch-ups, I really mean it. More importantly, it was only a matter of time before a child was knocked down or run over because all the drivers were so preoccupied with the other cars that they had stopped seeing the children. Somebody had to do something.

That somebody turned out to be Caroline, secretary of the Parents’ Committee, who had the presence of mind to bring a clipboard and pad to school one morning while the mayhem was happening and collect the names of parents willing to take turns at supervising the playground from eight thirty till nine. That way, all the mad traffic would be thinned out over half an hour. Unprecedented numbers said yes. Crafty Caroline now has their details when it comes to seeking help with the Bingo Night/Fun Day/Apple Supper. Hence the playground-parent scheme. Those of us participating all had to have police checks and the cost of that means we now need a Quiz Night to replenish our Parents’ Committee funds.

*

Experience? I definitely won’t get this job if I don’t hurry up and do something about filling in the application form. But experience? After being alive, even just hanging around doing very little for all these years, I know a thing or two. But is any of it likely to impress an appointment panel? I mean, I know that ‘Adeste Fideles’ is just Latin for ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’; I know that a small child can go tobogganing quite successfully in a roasting tin; I know that anxiety will always go away eventually (even if it must, sooner or later, return), but who cares about any of that? They must mean ‘relevant experience’, mustn’t they? In which case, I seem to have none at all.

* * *

In a moment of madness I put companionship with him ahead of my love affair with Jamie ‘Mac’ McDonald. Instead of watching the second and concluding episode at the time of broadcast, I taped it so that we could watch it together when he finally got home after working his extra hours. Except it turns out I didn’t tape it, or the video recorder has broken down. Now I’ll never know how it worked out in the end! This is what happens when you try to be nice.

*

Today I took the car through the hot-foam car-wash. It was quite relaxing, even sitting in the queue watching the cars ahead being scrubbed and hosed. I’d like to take the car through the car-wash every week, instead of waiting until strangers have written rude messages in the grime with their fingers, but it costs £4 a time. Yet another reminder of the need to get my job application posted off. I’m down to the section on references. I do not want to ask Margaret, my ex-manager at the thrift shop, because (a) she’s mean-spirited and would be bound to give me a mean reference, and (b) I don’t think she’s all that bright, and her poor skills might reflect badly on me. Could I ask Mrs Nilsson, our goddesslike area manager? But how would I find her?

*

There are only two Nilssons in the phone book. This is promising, providing Mrs Nilsson is not ex-directory.

*

Mrs Nilsson is ex-directory.

*

There’s a DJ on Zero FM who likes to think he can find anything for anyone. Marilyn keeps the radio tuned to Zero FM behind the market stall and I’ve heard him find lots of things for people, like lost dogs and recordings of ‘Count’ John McCormack. Could he find me a tape of last night’s episode of Mac? Would I have to go on air, if I phoned in, and give my actual name? Or could they just read out the problem from a card? I must act quickly before whoever has it tapes over it.

* * *

In our local paper, I’ve found a suitably interesting event for us to attend this weekend: a Family Activity Day at the Millennium Exhibition and Arts Centre. That should show year two the sort of people they’re dealing with.

* * *

Marilyn has agreed to give me a reference. I think this is on the understanding that it’s a farewell gift; she’s had enough of me watching over the demise of her funky ethical market stall. I need to get this job more than ever now, if Marilyn is laying me off.

*

My request for the Mac video was read out this morning, along with a lot of nonsense about why women cannot parallel park, fold maps or work video recorders. This is the price you pay for going public: you are held up to ridicule.

* * *

What am I supposed to do with all the crap we produced at the Family Activity Day? It’s fine the tutors encouraging the children to glue lots of things together and explore contrasting textures but we now have three tower blocks of toilet-roll tubes, rags, bits of old doily and egg box. I admit that the children had fun making them, but did we have to bring them home? What are we expected to do with them? This is where I wish I could get an honest look into other people’s lives: truthfully, do they keep these creations? And if so, for how long? Where do they put them? Or do they chuck them straight in the bin?

*

A girl rang from Zero FM to say that a man has the Mac video for me; he will send it to them and they’ll send it to me. She said I don’t need to worry about reimbursing him for the postage because they’ll send him a station goodie-bag to a much greater value than the stamps. She said she wouldn’t be sending me a goodie-bag because on this occasion I was already the beneficiary of the transaction and also because they’re running out of bubble-wrap.

*

There’s not going to be a new Mac mystery tonight because we’re having another week-long TV ‘spectacular’. This one is called The North, East, West, South Talent Show and it’s going to be on every night at eight up to and including Sunday. It is called The North, East, West, South Talent Show because all the contestants are NEWS-readers. The Radio Times carries an attractive picture of Anna Ford playing her acoustic guitar in the 1960s but she doesn’t even feature in this competition and the written text says it hopes the ‘Talent’ will be provided with decent microphones to drown the sound of barrels being scraped.

*

Oh, for goodness’ sake. On News Day he told year two he drew an alien. Which he did, of course, last night, with an old biro on the back of a bit of brown envelope. But what sort of news is that?

* * *

The NEWS Talent Show was rubbish and the programme-makers don’t seem to have made up their minds whether to disguise the contestants’ horrendous lack of ability by using lots of strong backing singers, etc., or to go for broke with the sort of so-bad-it’s-compelling car-crash T V.

*

The roads service has marked a pothole in our avenue with a big blue X. Our youngest child spotted it from his bedroom window and is now of the belief that there is buried treasure under the road outside our house.

*

I wonder if my prospective employers have read my application yet.

* * *

I’ve an interview! I’ve not had a job interview for approximately one hundred years! What do I wear? What do I talk about? It’s next Monday.

* * *

Eleanor has lent me a skirt and top for the interview. I think it’ll probably be obvious that I’m wearing someone else’s clothes, but as my own consist mainly of tracksuit bottoms and T-shirts that have lost their vertical alignment in the wash, I don’t have much option. She says they’ll ask me if I’m willing to work Saturdays, and I must say yes, even though it means leaving him to look after the children. She says they’ll also ask how I can be sure that I’ll be able to cope with turning up for work every day when I’ve been at home for so long, and I’m to say that looking after small children means no lunch breaks, no holidays and no sick days, so that, by comparison, going out to work will be a doddle. She said to say that I’ve very supportive parents who will be happy to provide childcare as and when required. (I was afraid to ask her whether she actually meant this, as it would be a new development, or whether it was just something she was advising me to put forward for the purposes of getting the job.)

El. . .