Mother of the Year
MOTHER OF THE YEAR When Rachel Gregory was born, her mother felt herself drowning in hatred towards the baby. The father had just done a runner, upped and left like the coward Iris Gregory knew him to be. Iris would look at Rachel and see the dad, then the hatred would fill her up like a newly pulled pint and she’d suffocate right up to her throat. The dad was Brian. She didn’t know where he went or why he went. Well, the why was obvious. Iris called herself headstrong (what she meant was high-strung). Iris was bitter. Iris felt anger towards everything and everyone. And Brian couldn’t hack it anymore. Iris went around to Brian’s mum the week he left, held the baby in her arms, and looked her ex-mother-in-law straight in the face: ‘Look what your waster son has left me with,’ Iris said with spit coming out her lips. He joined the French Foreign Legion. Apparently. That’s what she told people anyway. She didn’t know what that meant when Brian’s mother said it, but it sounded be