9.47 a.m. Right. Have got to pull self together, get up and get on. Cannot be floating around in lingerie having some completely unnecessary push-me-pull-you inner dialogue about why toy boy hasn’t responded to text, when have screenplay to write and children to take responsibility and schedule things for.
But why hasn’t he texted back?
9.50 a.m. Will check email.
9.55 a.m. Nothing. Just a forwarded email from George from Greenlight. Maybe something nice?
10 a.m. OMG. Just opened the forwarded email and detonated a bomb.
FWD: Sender:
Ambergris Bilk
To:
George Katernis
Just spoke with Dougie. He’s soooooooo awesome. Am so totally
Leaves
now. So glad he’s on the same page about putting a proper screenwriter on it.
For a few moments I stared blankly at the screen.
‘A proper screenwriter.’
A PROPER SCREENWRITER?
Then I picked up a quarter of a cabbage which Chloe had for some reason left on the kitchen table (did she persuade them to eat some sort of cabbage recipe from the Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook for breakfast?), started shoving the cabbage into my mouth, biting at fronds, and walking very fast round the kitchen table dropping bits of cabbage down the front of my slip and onto the floor. There was a ping on the phone: Roxster.
There was another ping on the text: Infants Branch.
10.15 a.m. Calm and poised. Will simply open fridge, take out grated mozzarella and shove into mouth, along with more cabbage.
10.16 a.m. OK, is all in mouth now. Will just have swig of Red Bull to top it off. Oh! Telephone! Maybe Roxster regretting the text?
11 a.m. Was Imogen from Greenlight. ‘Bridget. There’s been a terrible mistake. George has just forwarded you an email in error. Could you possibly delete it before you . . . Bridget? Bridget??’
Was not able to reply owing to contents of mouth. Rushed over to the sink and spurted out the Red Bull, grated mozzarella and cabbage, just as Chloe appeared at the top of the stairs. I turned round and grinned at her, bits of the cabbage and grated mozzarella falling from my teeth, like a vampire caught eating a person.
‘Bridget? Bridget?’ Imogen was still saying into the phone.
‘Yes?’ I said, waving a cheery hello at Chloe, whilst trying to spray the sink with the extendable tap to get rid of the cheese and cabbage.
‘Have you heard about Mabel’s finger?’ whispered Chloe. I nodded calmly and gesticulated towards the phone under my chin. As I listened to Imogen, repeating the story about the inadvertently-forwarded-by-George email, my eye was caught by the newspaper, still folded where Roxster had been reading it.
The Tragic Fate of the Toy Boy
by Ellen Boschup
Suddenly there are more toy boys everywhere! As the advances of medical science preserve the appearance of youth, and more and more middle-aged women are devoting their time and resources to doing just that, more and more are turning to ‘the younger man’ – Ellen Barkin, Madonna and Sam Taylor-Wood to name but a few. For these older, preying women, or ‘cougars’ as they are appropriately known, the advantages are obvious: youth; vigorous, energetic, frequent, satisfying sex; and the sort of baggage-free companionship they would never find in their sagging, balding, middle-aged male counterparts, too idle and self-absorbed to fight the advances of the years.
‘Bridget?’ Imogen was still saying. ‘Are you all right? What’s going on? Earth-to-Bridget. Bridget? Net-a-Porter? Mini Mars bars?’
‘No! Super! Thanks for letting me know. I’ll call you later. Bye!’
I clicked off the phone and returned, reeling, to the article.
For the young, defenceless boys who are their prey, it may seem like an attractive trade. These women, when the lights are off, anyway, seem impressively preserved. Like pickled lemons. There’s no pressure over babies, no demands on the toy boy to succeed at his career. Instead there is a gateway into a glamorous, sophisticated world beyond his wildest dreams. The benefit of an experienced lover, a woman who knows what she wants in bed, who enhances his reputation – an entrée into society, and access to luxury travel. Where’s the downside? When he’s drunk his fill, he can simply leave his cougar to fall ravenously on her next unsuspecting prey. However, as more and more of these Unfortunates are discovering . . .
‘Everything all right, Bridget?’ said Chloe.
‘Yes, super. Could you go upstairs and tidy Mabel’s drawers, please?’ I said with an unaccustomed air of calm authority.
Once Chloe had gone, I lunged at another piece of cabbage, continuing to read as I shoved it into my mouth along with a piece of Nicorette.
. . . far from leaving when they choose, and moving on enhanced, these abused boys are left broken and sexually exhausted, self-esteem in tatters, with a key phase of their career and family-building life wasted. But hang on a minute! Some of these youths, it is true, like Ashton Kutcher, use their cougar as a kingmaker to advance their own careers and profiles. Far more of them, however, are abandoned, back in their sordid flats and bedsits, scorned by their friends, family and colleagues for consorting with women old enough to be their grandmothers, dumped back in their own world which now seems devoid of a glamour they will never . . .
I slumped at the table, head on my arms. Bloody Ellen Boschup. Don’t these people realize what harm they cause with their glib social generalizations? Plucking bogus phenomena and flimsy constructs out of the air at meetings – ‘Whatever Happened to the Dining Room?’ ‘Suddenly There Are More Dining Rooms Everywhere!!’ – then writing sententious social commentary as if it’s the conclusion to years of in-depth research rather than 1200 words to file on a deadline, ruining people’s lives and relationships, based on something they overheard in the gastropub and a couple of blurry photographs in Heat magazine.
‘Should I go and pick up Mabel and take her to the doctor?’ asked Chloe. ‘Are you all right, Bridget?’
‘No, no, I’ll . . . go and get her,’ I said. ‘Could you text the school and tell them I’ll be there in a mo?’
I walked insouciantly into the toilet and slumped, mind racing. If only there was just one thing to deal with. Roxster’s ‘confusion’, the horrible article, the ‘proper screenwriter’ or the septic-finger shame I could probably handle individually but not all at the same time. Clearly the septic finger had to take precedence, but could I allow anyone to see me in such a disturbed state? If I picked Mabel up like this, wild-eyed and bonkers, and took her to the doctor, would the school or the doctor put her into care?
Equilibrium was what I needed. I needed to clear my mind, because, as it says in How to Stay Sane, the mind is plastic.
I took some deep breaths in and out and went, ‘Maaaaa,’ to pray to the mother of the universe.
I looked at myself in the mirror. It really wasn’t good. I washed my face, straightened my hair with my fingers, emerged from the toilet and walked past Chloe with a gracious, lady-of-the-house smile, glossing over the fact that I was still dressed in a slip at eleven in the morning and she may have just heard me saying ‘Maaaaa’ in the toilet.
1 p.m. Mabel seemed quite excited about the finger. It actually wasn’t as bad as they’d made out, but still, it was hard to see how a responsible mother could have missed it if it really had been like that all the time.
At the doctor’s, stood in front of the two receptionists for four minutes while they calmly continued to type as if a) I wasn’t there and b) they were both writing contemplative poems. In the meantime Mabel was trotting happily around the waiting room, and picking up leaflets from the plastic wall display.
‘I’m going to weed!’ she said, and started reading out, ‘Guh oh nuh oh ruh.’
‘Well done, darling,’ I said, finally sitting down and desperately checking my texts to see if Greenlight or Roxster or indeed anyone had anything to say to make me feel better.
‘Guh, oh, nuh, oh, ruh, ruh, huh, oh, eh, ah.’
‘So clever!’ I murmured.
‘Gonorrhoea!’ she shouted triumphantly, opening the leaflet. ‘Oh, there’s pictures! Weed Gonorrhoea to me?’
‘Oh! Hahaha!’ I said, grabbing the leaflets and stuffing them in my handbag. ‘Let’s see if there are some more lovely leaflets,’ I said, staring glassily at an array of them in a variety of cheery colours: ‘Syphilis’, ‘Non-Specific Urethritis’, ‘Male and Female Condoms’ and – rather late in the day – ‘Pubic Lice’.
‘Let’s play with the toys!’ I trilled.
‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice it,’ I said, when we finally got in to the doctor.
‘They can flare up in a few moments,’ the doctor said supportively. ‘She just needs some antibiotics and she’ll be fine.’
After the doctor’s we went and bought some Disney Princess plasters from the chemist, and Mabel decided she wanted to go back to school.
2 p.m. Just got home, relieved to have house to self, and sat down to . . . What, though? Work? But I’ve been sacked, haven’t I? Everything looks dark and gloomy.
Oh, wait, am still wearing prescription sunglasses again.
3.15 p.m. Just spent twenty minutes staring melodramatically into space, trying not to imagine shooting myself like Hedda Gabler, then started googling skull or dagger pendants on Net-a-Porter instead. Then suddenly realized with a start it was time for Mabel and Billy’s school pickup.
6 p.m. I was in a complete flap when Mabel and I got to Billy’s school because we were late, and I had to go to the office first about Billy’s bassoon lessons. ‘Have you got the form?’ said Valerie, the school secretary. Started rifling through the mess that was my handbag, putting papers down on the counter.
‘Ah, Mr Wallaker,’ said Valerie.
I looked up and there he was, smirking as usual.
‘Everything going well?’ he said, still looking down at the mess. I followed his gaze. ‘Syphilis – Looking After Your Sexual Health’. ‘Gonorrhoea – Signs and Symptoms’. ‘Sexual Health Direct! A User’s Guide’.
‘They’re not mine,’ I said.
‘Right, right.’
‘They’re Mabel’s!’
‘Mabel’s! Well, in that case, that’s fine.’ He was actually shaking with mirth now. I grabbed the leaflets and stuffed them back in my bag.
‘Hey!’ said Mabel. ‘Dothe are my leafletth. Give them to me!’
Mabel reached into my bag and grabbed ‘Gonorrhoea – Signs and Symptoms’. I tried, undignified, to snatch it back, but Mabel wasn’t letting go.
‘They’re my leafletth,’ said Mabel accusingly, adding, for effect, ‘Dammit!’
‘And they’re very useful leaflets,’ said Mr Wallaker, bending down. ‘Why don’t you take this one as well and give the rest to Mummy?’
‘Thank you, Mr Wallaker,’ I said firmly but pleasantly, then, nose in the air, swept off graciously towards the school gates, nearly tripping over Mabel on the steps, but nevertheless making a reasonably elegant exit.
‘Bridget!’ roared Mr Wallaker suddenly, as if I was one of the boys. I turned, startled. He had never called me Bridget before.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
I stared at him blankly.
‘Billy?’ He turned to Billy who was trotting up, looking at Mr Wallaker with a conspiratorial grin. They both looked at me, smirking.
‘She even forgets to get up sometimes,’ said Billy.
‘I bet,’ said Mr Wallaker.
‘Come along, children!’ I said, trying to regain my dignity.
‘Yeth, Mother,’ said Mabel with an unmistakable dollop of irony which was, frankly, annoying in one so small.
‘Thank you, Daughter,’ I said smoothly. ‘Hurry along! Goodbye, Mr Wallaker.’
When we got home, Billy and I slumped on the sofa as Mabel played happily with her sexual health leaflets.
‘I got rubbish marks for my homework,’ said Billy.
‘I got rubbish marks for my screenwriting.’
I showed him the email about the ‘proper screenwriter’. Billy handed me his art book with his colouring of Ganesha the Elephant God and the teacher’s notes:
‘I like your mix of yellow, green and red on his head. However, I am not sure that the multicoloured ears quite work.’
We stared at each other dolefully, then both started giggling.
‘Shall we have an oatmeal cookie?’ I said.
We got through the whole packet, but it’s just like eating muesli, right?
OVERSTUFFED LIVES
Wednesday 5 June 2013
134lb, hours in day 24, hours required to do all things supposed to do in day 36, hours spent worrying about how to fit in all things supposed to do in day 4, number of things supposed to have done actually done 1 (go to toilet).
2 p.m.
LIST OF JOBS
*Put washing on
*Respond to Zombie Apocalypse invite
*Call Brian Katzenberg about the Ambergris Bilk email
*Blow up bike
*Grated cheese
*Figure out weekend: Saturday afternoon is Atticus’s African drumming party for Billy but Bikram’s mum says she will do pickup or drop-off if we do the other, then Cosmata’s Build-A-Bear party for Mabel on Sun at the same time as Billy’s football. Figure out who is going to pick kids up from which party with Jeremiah’s mum and Cosmata’s mum and also ask Jeremiah’s mum if Jeremiah wants to come to football.
*Call Mum (my mum)
*Call Grazina and see if she can fill in gaps at weekend, then check trains to Eastbourne
*Figure out what to do re Roxster mini-break
*Find bank card
*Find Virgin remote
*Find telephone
*Lose 3lb
*Respond to mass emails re Sports Day vegetables
*Find out if still supposed to go to Greenlight meeting tomorrow
*Greek or Roman myth party/photo
*Half-leg and bikini wax in case mini-break still on
*‘Ic’ Suffix Family ‘crest’
*Core Stability
*Fill in form about Billy’s bassoon lessons and take to school
*Find bassoon form
*Toilet light bulb
*Exercise on exercise bike (clearly this is not going to happen)
*Send back Net-a-Porter dress that didn’t wear for Talitha’s party
*Find out why fridge is making that noise
*Find and destroy Mabel’s gonorrhoea leaflets
*Find end scene from draft 12 about scuba-diving
*Teeth
Oh God. All these jobs will not actually fit into an hour, which is now twenty minutes.
OK. Am simply going to do ‘Quadrant Living’ like it says in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and simply arrange the jobs into ‘four quadrants’:
2.45 p.m. You see. Much better!
2.50 p.m. Perhaps will go to the toilet. That is at least one of them.
2.51 p.m. Right, have been to the toilet now.
2.55 p.m. Oooh! Doorbell!
I opened the door, and Rebecca from across the road fell into the hallway, wearing a tiara, mascara smeared under her eyes, staring into space, clutching a list and a polythene bag full of egg sandwiches.
‘Do you want a fag?’ she said, in a strange, other-worldly voice. ‘I can’t go on.’
We went downstairs and slumped, staring into space, sucking on our fags like fishwives.
‘The annual Latin play,’ she said in a strange, disconnected voice.
‘Staff presents,’ I concurred dully. ‘Zombie Apocalypses.’ Then burst into a coughing fit as have not had a fag for five years apart from two puffs on a joint at Leatherjacketman’s party.
‘I think I’m having a full-on breakdown without anyone actually noticing,’ said Rebecca.
Suddenly leaped to my feet, stubbing out the fag, in inspirational frenzy.
‘It’s just a question of prioritizing into quadrants. Look!’ I said, thrusting my quadrant sheet under her nose.
She stared at the form, then burst into hysterical high-pitched giggles like someone in a mental hospital.
I suddenly had a brainwave. ‘It’s a State of Emergency!’ I said excitedly. ‘A cut-and-dried State of Emergency. Once a State of Emergency is declared, normal service is suspended and you don’t have to expect anything to be all right and you just need to do whatever you need to do to get through the emergency.’
‘Great!’ said Rebecca. ‘Let’s have a drinky. Just a little teensy-weensy one.’
I mean, it was only half a glass and really everything suddenly seemed much better, till she leaped up saying, ‘Oh my bloody God and fuck. I’m supposed to be on the school run,’ and ran out of the door, just as Roxster texted:
Rebecca then reappeared for her egg sandwiches just as I remembered I was supposed to be on the school run as well. Ran upstairs, then downstairs, looking for the rice cakes, simultaneously texting Roxster:
3.30 p.m. Back in car now. Oh, shit, have forgotten rice cakes.
Gaah, text from Roxster.
HE’S having a panic attack?
Ended up rushing from car to school in ungainly half-walking, half-running gait in middle of which Scandinavian tourists chose me – for unexplained reasons – to ask for directions. Panicking that they were trying to steal my time, I carried on walking determinedly whilst gesturing directions back to them. Oh God. Have let down country by being inhospitable to foreigners (though Scandinavia is in EU, I think?). But what is world coming to when one is more scared of passers-by stealing one’s time than one’s handbag?
9.30 p.m. No phone call from Roxster.
Oh God, oh God, he’s going to call and break up with me for not having a time machine.
10 p.m. Hate it when people delay phone calls because you know they are putting it off as they have to say what you don’t want to hear. Though Roxster hates phone calls anyway because I do too much talking and will not delay talking until the morning. Oh, phone call! Roxster!
10.05 p.m. ‘Oh, hello, darling.’ My mother. ‘Do you know, Penny Husbands-Bosworth has started lying about her age – she says she’s eighty-four. It’s completely ridiculous. Pawl, you know, the pastry chef, says she’s just doing it so everyone will say how young she looks and . . .’
10.09 p.m. Have managed to get Mum off phone but now feel guilty and also think maybe Roxster called while she was . . . Oooh! Text!
10.10 p.m. Was from Chloe.
Aaaaaargh! How has child-rearing got so . . . so complicated? Is as if you have to keep them on some sort of permanent high of engagement and happiness.
10.30 p.m. Suddenly enraged with Roxster, blaming the whole socio-global child-rearing dysfunctional collapse on him. ‘BLOODY Roxster! Me and Chloe have had to arrange all this complex matrix of African drummers and bears and extra people taking care of the children because of Roxster, and now will have nowhere to go and no one to see, simply because of Roxster. Will be like a . . . like a GIANT CUCKOO, de trop in own house ALL BECAUSE OF ROXSTER!’ – conveniently overlooking the fact that it was me who had wanted to go on the childcare-demanding mini-break in the first place.
10.35 p.m. Impulsively sent positively glacial text to Roxster, saying:
10.45 p.m. Muted text came back from Roxster.
Impulsively sent back: < But the mini-break is all set up now and it’s the first chance we’ve had to go away together on our own and it will be so romantic and . . . and everything.>
A few minutes’ wait – then a texting ping.
Yayyy! We’re going on a mini-break.
11 p.m. Talitha just called to see what was happening and said, ‘Careful, darling. Once they have wobbles like that, they’re not just enjoying the moment any more, they’re thinking about the long term. And Roxster’s far too young to know what a disastrous mistake that is.’
Feel like putting hands over ears saying, ‘Lalalala, don’t care. You only live once. We’re going on a mini-break! Hurrah!’
Thursday 6 June 2013
9.30 a.m. Got back from school run. Turned on email to deal with the school Sports Day picnic and detonated:
Sender:
Brian Katzenberg
Subject:
Forwarded email
Yes, you are fired. But they still want you in the mix. They’re going to set up a meeting with the new writer. The movie business!
A new writer? Already? How could they possibly have found one so quickly?
Phone quacked.
Roxster:
Jerked into action in a frenzy of googling country pubs on LateRooms.com to find absolutely everything was booked up.
We are like Mary and Joseph with no room at the Inn except that rather than about to give birth to the Son of God am about to be broken up with by Joseph.
10 a.m. Just texted Tom who texted back five minutes later.
10.05 a.m. Oh. Just checked the treehouse. It’s £875 a night.
10.15 a.m. Yayy! Have found a room in a pub.
10.20 a.m. Oh, just called them. It’s the Bridal Suite. Texted Roxster.
<*Sighs* Yes, Roxster, they do.>
10.45 a.m. No reply. Oh God. Maybe he thinks I’m serious?
Then decided to give him a way out in case he really just wanted a relaxing setting for the full break-up.
<*Googling menu* Of course you are, my little chicken and mushroom puffball.>
11 a.m. Feeling suddenly light and giddy, I booked the room and texted:
Long pause, then . . .
MINI-BREAK OR BREAK-UP?
Saturday 8 June 2013
Texting has been more high-spirited than ever with Roxby McDuff, full of plans for our trip, so maybe it was just a wobble brought on by the Ellen Boschup toy-boy article, and he is in the Present Moment and everything is all right.
But anyway had better finish packing or will miss train. Ooh, text from Roxster.
Was he going to cancel?
<*On one knee* Will you be my wife?>
Stared at the phone. What was going on?
Thought carefully, then, suspecting a trick, I texted:
Sunday 9 June 2013
Mini-breaks 1, shags 7, alcohol units 17, calories 15,892, weight 193lb (including, feels like, 60lb small animal).
Mini-break was heaven. It was ambrosia. We carried on the marriage joke all weekend. It was balmy, sunny weather and it was blissful being away from the noise and to-do lists. Roxster was at his most cheerful and merry. The pub was tiny, in a hidden valley by a little river. The Bridal Suite was in a separate barn, painted white, with a sloping ceiling and rough wooden beams, and windows on two sides, one side looking straight onto the river and, beyond, a water meadow. Tried to block out memories of Bridal Suite for my real wedding with Mark. But started laughing when Roxster carried me over the threshold, pretending to stagger under the weight, and flung me on the bed.
The windows were open and all you could hear was the river, birds, and sheep in the distance. We had sleepy dreamy sex, then slept for a while. Then we walked along the river and found a little ancient chapel, where we pretended to get married and that the cows were our wedding guests. Eventually we came to another pub, and drank too much beer to quench our thirst and topped it with wine. There was no talk about breaking up. I did tell Roxster about being sacked from Leaves and he was so sweet and said they were all mad, and didn’t appreciate my rare genius, and he was going to fight them with his beefy arms. Then we ate a meal so gigantic that afterwards I could hardly move. I had this huge . . . thing in my stomach . . . it felt like being pregnant with a strange creature with very protuberant arms and legs.
We went outside to try and walk it off. There was a full moon, and I suddenly thought about Mabel: ‘There’th the moon. It followth me.’ I thought about Mark, and all the times the moon had followed us, and all the years when I was sure, sure that he would always be there and that there wasn’t heartbreak ahead, just years of being together, stretching before us.
‘You all right, baby?’ said Roxster.
‘I feel like I’ve eaten a Bambi,’ I laughed, to cover the moment.
‘I feel like I want to eat you,’ said Roxster. He put his arm round my shoulders and everything felt fine again. We walked along the river a bit, then got into a bog, and decided it was too dark and too far and went back to the pub and rang for a taxi.
When we got home to the room, the windows were wide open, and the room was filled with the scent of blossom and the gentle sound of the river. Unfortunately, though, the Bambi was so huge that all I could do was put on my slip and lie face downwards on the bed, feeling as though there was a massive dent beneath me in the mattress containing the Bambi. Then suddenly a dog started barking, really loudly, right outside the window. It just wouldn’t stop. Then the Bambi eased itself slightly and embarrassingly by letting out an enormous fart.
‘Jonesey!’ said Roxster. ‘Was that a fart?’
‘Maybe just a teensy-weensy little pfuff of Bambi,’ I said sheepishly.
‘Little pfuff? It was more like a plane taking off. It’s even silenced the dog!’
It had. But then the bloody dog started barking again. It was like being on a housing estate on the outskirts of Leeds.
‘I’ll give you something to take your mind off it, baby,’ said Roxster.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
10 p.m. Back in London now. Blissful. Got home at six feeling like a new woman. Children seemed to have had a really good time and I was delighted to see them again, and was so full of joie de vivre and bonhomie that even a Sunday evening, with the panic of forgotten homework, passed in a golden joy of 50s-style hearth and home. Better, Easier Parenting? Just get laid a lot.
Ooh, text.
Roxster:
Hmm. Suspected a trick. Still wary from the whole confusion/panic attack thing.
Me: <*Farts* Not catching me out being lovey-dovey.>
Roxster: <*Sobs*>
Me: <*Evil cackle* I didn’t heart the weekend at all, honestly.>
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
IS IT SNOW OR IS IT BLOSSOM?
Tuesday 11 June 2013
133lb, days since any communication from Roxster 2, amount of day spent worrying about lack of communication from Roxster 95%, mass emails re Sports Day chopped vegetables 76, spam emails 104, combined minutes late for school pickups 9, number of sides on a pentagon (unknown).
2 p.m. Very weird weather – is freezing cold and little white things swirling about. Cannot be snow, surely – is June. Maybe is blossom? But so much of it.
2.05 p.m. Roxster has not called or texted since Sunday night.
2.10 p.m. It is snow. But not nice snow like in the winter. Is strange snow. Presumably world about to end through global warming. Think will go to Starbucks.
Though really ought to find somewhere other than Starbucks that does ham-and-cheese paninis in protest at whole tax-avoidance thing, though maybe irrelevant as world about to end anyway.
2.30 p.m. Mmm. Feel much jollier about everything, now am in world full of people and coffee and ham-and-cheese paninis all huddling together cosy from the cold. The weird unnatural snow has stopped and everything seems normal again. Honestly! Getting in such a stew about everything. Think will text Roxster. I mean, I haven’t texted him since Sunday night either, have I?
Roxster:
Me: <*Types* Roxster’s beefy shoulders glistened in the dappling sunlight like, like . . . beefy shoulders.>
Roxster:
Me: <*Calmly continues typing* An enormous fart emerged from his bum, which quivered in the blossom-scented air. . .>
Roxster has not replied. Ooh, text.
Was Jude.
Texted back:
2.55 p.m. Still Roxster has not replied. Hate this. Am so confused. And have to pick kids up in half an hour and be all cheerful. OK, have a few minutes to deal with Sports Day emails.
Sender:
Nicolette Martinez
Subject:
Sports Day Picnic
Sent from my Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro
We need picnic items for boys/parents for our class. I’ve filled in the parents who have already volunteered. Juices: Dagmar
Sliced carrots, radishes and peppers (red and yellow): ?
Sandwiches: Atsuko Fujimoto
Crisps: Devora
Water: ???
Fruits: ??
Melon balls and strawberries: ?
Cookies (no nuts please!): Valencia
Black bin liners: Scheherazade
Let us know what you plan to bring.
Thank you.
Please let’s all bring picnic blankets if we have them.
Thanks, Nicolette
Sender:
Vladlina Koutznestov
Subject:
Re: Sports Day Picnic
I’ll bring fruits – probably some berries and cut-up melons.
Sender:
Anzhelika Sans Souci
Subject:
Re: Sports Day Picnic
I’ll bring sliced carrots, and radishes. Could someone else do red and yellow peppers?
Anzhelika
PS Should someone bring paper cups?
Farzia, Bikram’s mum, just forwarded me an email she’d – in a moment of utter madness – sent to Nicolette.
Sender:
Farzia Seth
Subject:
Re: Sports Day Picnic
Do you think we all need picnic blankets – won’t a few between us be fine?
And the one she’d got back from Nicolette, with a note from Farzia saying, ‘Shoot me now!’
Sender:
Nicolette Martinez
Subject:
Re: Sports Day Picnic
Definitely not. We should all bring picnic blankets. With two boys at the school, I do have some experience of this!
Light-headed and devil-may-care now, I emailed Farzia ‘Watch this’ and sent:
Sender:
Bridget Billymum
Subject:
Re: Sports Day Picnic
I’ll bring the vodka. We drink it neat without mixers, all agreed?
Group email came instantly back.
Sender:
Nicolette Martinez
Subject:
Re: Sports Day Picnic
Vodka is NOT a good idea at Sports Day, Bridget. Or cigarettes. Could you manage the red and yellow peppers? Possibly? In strips so they’ll work with the dips? It is actually quite a difficult job organizing the Sports Day Picnic.
Oh, shit. In the middle of it all suddenly saw email from Imogen at Greenlight.
Sender:
Imogen Faraday, Greenlight Productions
Subject:
Ambergris’s Notes
Dear Bridget,
Just checking that you got the notes from Ambergris on the script for tomorrow’s meeting to meet Saffron. Could you confirm that you can be at the meeting to give your notes on Ambergris’s notes for Saffron?
Hope you’re not about to slash your wrists, because I am.
Imogen x
What meeting? What notes? Who is ‘Saffron’?
Spooled frantically through morass of emails about Sports Day fruits and vegetables, Zombie Apocalypse, Ocado, ASOS, Net-a-Porter, Mexican Viagra, etc., then realized it was time to pick up Mabel.
4.30 p.m. Mabel and Billy just had argument all the way home over whether a triathlon with five sports was called a Quintathlon or Pentathlon.
‘It is!’
‘It isn’t.’
Tried to work out feebly how many sides a pentagon had or remember what five was in Latin, and ended up nearly crashing the car and yelling, ‘Look, will you just shut up?!’ then going into paroxysms of guilt while they started on what the five sports were and Mabel said one of them was ‘Tape measuring’.
‘Tape measuring?’ Billy said incredulously, at which Mabel burst into tears and said, ‘Dey do do tape measuring.’
9.15 p.m. Just read article in the paper about David Cameron saying he keeps getting calls from heads of state when the kids are in the back of the car, recounting putting his hand over the receiver and hissing, ‘Look, will you SHUT UP?’ while talking to the Israeli Prime Minister.
So maybe it isn’t just me.
FRANTIC
Wednesday 12 June 2013
8 a.m. Right. Greenlight meeting is at nine so have managed to get Chloe to do school run, and then I will do school pickup instead.
8.10 a.m. Just have to wash hair and get dressed.
8.15 a.m. Disaster. Navy silk dress is at the dry-cleaner’s and forgot to ask Chloe to get mountain of red and yellow peppers ready for tomorrow, and still have to wash hair.
8.45 a.m. On bus, nearly there. Feel trussed up like a chicken in black evening dress, which was only clean meeting-like garment could find. Looked OK in mirror because it is corset-like which holds everything in when standing up, giving one a taut hourglass shape, with, admittedly, a lace top, but have put Grazia blazer on top, though now boiling, to create pleasingly eclectic Good Luck Charlie daughter effect.
However, on glimpsing in shop window realized outfit insane. Now am on bus, remember also that corset-like nature of dress is torture when sitting down. One’s rolls of fat are squeezed together like dough being kneaded in a food processor. Also, whole effect has something of the dominatrix about it, which is the last thing I am able to pull off when mental state would be more authentically represented by a duvet, hot-water bottle and Puffle One. Plus hair has gone into weird square bouffe like Mum and Una as if I am wearing a hat.
Did manage to find and read Ambergris Bilk’s notes overnight, but now confused because The Leaves in His Hair seems, in Ambergris’s mind, to have moved to Stockholm. Does she know George is stuck with the yacht in Hawaii because of the stoner movie falling over? And will George think I was trying to talk Ambergris back to Norway and she disguised it as Sweden? Actually, will ask Chloe to get some Pimm’s as well as don’t see how can otherwise get through Sports Day in sub-glacial temperatures. Gaaah! Text from Roxster.
Dinner tonight? Did we say we were having dinner tonight? Oh, shit, now have not got babysitter and . . . had better go to meeting.
3 p.m. Nightmare meeting. ‘Saffron’ turned out to be the new screenwriter, who is, of course, twenty-six, and has just written a pilot – ‘Girls meets Game of Thrones meets The Killing’ – which is about to be ‘picked up’ by HBO (before, I thought with un-Buddhist spiteful hope, it ‘falls over’). Felt like some embarrassing evening-dress-with-blazer-and-weird-hat-hair elephant in the room. Then accidentally put chair leg on handbag, which, unbeknownst to me, now contained Billy’s noise machine from the party bag from the African drumming party, and emitted a very long burp. Nobody laughed except Imogen.
Saffron’s opening foray, placing the script on the table in front of her, was a simpering: ‘This might just be me, but isn’t Hedda Gabler actually spelt with one b? Gabler? Not Gabbler? And isn’t it by Ibsen, not Chekhov?’
As everyone stared at me, and I muttered something about anti-intellectualist irony, found self thinking how relaxing it would be to have dinner with Roxster and laugh about it all. Nearly texted him back saying: but thought it sounded petulant so instead, as soon as attention was diverted to Saffron’s nauseating theories about how to RUIN my oeuvre, I furtively texted:
Roxster:
Instantly regretted saying ‘chicken pie’, as did not have either chicken pie or means to make chicken pie. Also legs were probably hairy, but could not check as in meeting. Was too weak, depressed and bewildered to get into the discussion about Stockholm versus Hawaii so just said that maybe we should ‘let Saffron do a draft’ and see how it ‘comes off the page’. At which George had to run off to get a plane to Albuquerque.
7.30 p.m. Ugh. I rushed home from meeting, managing to squeeze in buying mountain of red and green peppers as did not have yellow, and purchase of chicken pie from overpriced deli, then managed to pick up both children just in time.
As we were driving home, Billy said, ‘Mummy?’
‘Yes,’ I said vaguely, trying to dodge a cyclist who had just veered out in front of me.
‘It’s Father’s Day on Sunday. We made cards.’
‘We did too,’ said Mabel.
As soon as I could, I pulled over and cut the engine. I wiped my face with both hands, rubbing my eyes for a second, then turned to look at them.
‘Can I see the cards?’
They scrabbled in their bags. Mabel’s was of a family with a daddy, a mummy, a little girl and a little boy. Billy’s drawing was contained in a heart, with a little boy playing a game with his father. It said ‘Daddy’.
‘Can we post dem to Daddy?’ said Mabel.
When we got home, I got out all the photos of them with Mark – Billy in a little suit, the same as Mark’s, standing together, the same look on their faces, exactly the same pose, one hand in the trouser pocket. Mark holding Mabel up when she was newborn, like a little toy in her onesie. We talked about Daddy, and how I was sure he knew what we were doing, and he was loving us still. Then we went out and posted the cards.
Mabel had addressed hers ‘Daddy. Heaven. Space’. In the midst of feeling guilty about everything else I felt guilty about traumatizing the postman.
On the way home Billy said, ‘I wish we lived in a normal family, like Rebecca.’
‘That’s not a normal family,’ I said. ‘They never—’
‘Finn has Xbox in the week!’ said Billy.
‘Can we have SpongeBob now?’ said Mabel.
They were really tired. They fell asleep straight away after their bath.
8 p.m. Roxster will be here in half an hour. Am going to have a bath and re-wash hair, put make-up on, and try to find something suitable to wear for evening with person who may be about to either break up with me or produce an engagement ring.
8.10 p.m. In bath now. Gaah! Telephone.
8.15 p.m. Jumped out of the bath, wrapped self in towel and grabbed phone, to hear deep, powerful voice of George from Greenlight.
‘OK. We’re just on the tarmac in Denver. So, look, that went well today, but we don’t want you to lose . . . Santa Fe.’
‘But it’s in Stockholm!’ I said, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t put the chicken pie in.
‘Hang on, we’re disembarking . . . we don’t want you to lose your voice.’
What was he talking about? I hadn’t lost my voice. Had I?
‘Stockholm? No, I’m transferring to Santa Fe.’ Was he talking to me now, or the air hostess?
‘So. We want you to Hedda it up.’
‘Hedda it up?’ What could he possibly mean? Maybe he was talking to the pilot.
‘No, sorry, I meant Albuquerque.’
‘George!’ I yelled. ‘Aren’t you meant to be in Albufeira?’
‘What? WHAT?’
The phone went dead.
8.20 p.m. Just ran downstairs to put the chicken pie in the oven and the landline rang.
‘OK. What was that about Albufeira?’ George again.
‘It was a joke,’ I said, trying to open the chicken pie with my teeth. ‘I can’t concentrate on what you’re saying, because you’re always on a plane or some other mode of transport. Can’t we just talk about things calmly for TWO minutes with you in one place?’ I said, tucking the phone under my chin, opening the oven door with one hand and shoving the pie in with the other. ‘I can’t WORK with you rushing about like this! I need to concentrate.’
George suddenly switched into a purring, sensual, soothing voice I hadn’t heard before.
‘OK, OK. We think you’re a genius. Once this trip is over I’m going to be in the office all the time, all right? You just need to put back the special Hedda voice we love so much into all the Hedda lines when Saffron’s finished with them. And you’ll have my undivided, calm attention.’
‘OK, yes,’ I said frantically, wondering if I could glaze the pie before I dried my hair.
8.40 p.m. Phew. Thank goodness Roxster is a bit late. Everything is fine. Hair is normal. Chicken pie is not only in oven but GLAZED with beaten egg to give pleasing air of some form of cooking. Downstairs is looking all right, and lit by candles, and think silk shirt is OK and not too slutty as we have been sleeping together for months, and also everything else is either too uncomfortable or in the wash. Oh God, I’m so tired. Think will just have little sleep on sofa for a few minutes.
9.15 p.m. Gaaah! Is 9.15 and Roxster is not here. Have I slept through the doorbell?
Just texted Roxster.
Stared at the text, mind reeling. A curry? Buses slow? Colleagues? Roxster doesn’t say ‘colleagues’. And what about the chicken pie? What was going on?
9.45 p.m. Roxster is still not here. Texted:
Roxster:
FARTING SPORTS DAY
Thursday 13 June 2013
136lb (bloody chicken pie, plus egg glaze), alcohol units 7 (counting last night), hangovers 1 (cataclysmic), temperature 90 degrees, peppers chopped 12, melon balls consumed 35, wrinkles appeared during course of day 45, number of times used word ‘fart’ in texts to Roxster 9 (undignified).
Awoke at first light feeling everything was OK, then suddenly glimpsed the tip of the iceberg of the train wreck of last night. Doorbell rang at 10 p.m. at which I sprayed myself with perfume and answered the door in more or less nothing but the white shirt.
Roxster said, ‘Mmm, you look so nice,’ and started kissing me all the way down the stairs. We ate the chicken pie, and downed the bottle of red wine he’d brought. He said I was to sit down on the sofa and relax, while he washed up. I watched him, thinking how lovely everything was, but still vaguely wondering why and how he’d managed to eat a curry and then a chicken pie and not feel or look like he had eaten a Bambi. Then he came over and knelt at my feet.
‘I have something to say,’ he said.
‘What?’ I said, smiling at him sleepily.
‘I’ve never said this to any woman before. I heart you, Jonesey. I really, seriously heart you.’
‘Oh,’ I said, looking at him slightly crazily, one eye closed and one open.
‘And if it wasn’t for the age difference,’ he went on, ‘I’d be down on one knee. I really would. You’re the best woman I’ve ever met and I’ve hearted every minute we’ve had together. But it’s different for you because you’ve got your kids and I haven’t got my life sorted out. This is just not going anywhere. I really need to meet someone my own age, and I can’t do that unless I’m able to do that. Does that make any sense whatsoever?’
Maybe if I’d been less tired I’d have tried to talk it through properly, but instead I immediately turned into Girl Guide mode, launching into a cheery speech about how of course he was right! He must find someone his own age! But it had been marvellous for both of us, and we’d both learned and grown so much!
Roxster was staring at me with a haunted expression.
‘But can we still be friends?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I gushed joyfully.
‘Do you think we’ll be able to see each other without tearing each other’s clothes off?’
‘Of course!’ I said merrily. ‘Anyway, chuh! Best be getting off to bed. Sports Day tomorrow!’
I saw him out, with a fixed, cheery smile, then, instead of doing the sensible thing and texting Rebecca and asking her to come over, or calling Talitha or Tom or Jude or anyone, really, I got into bed and sobbed for two hours until I fell asleep. And now, oh, shit, it’s 6 a.m., the kids will be up in an hour and I have to take chopped vegetables and both of them to Sports Day, on half a bottle of red wine and four hours’ sleep, in the now, freakishly, blazing heat.
6 p.m. Managed to get everyone and everything into car on time, drive to sports ground, and then get everybody and everything out of the car by pretending was soldier in a war combined with the Dalai Lama. Billy and Mabel had forgotten all about the Father’s Day trauma and were wildly jolly, running off immediately to charge around with their friends, mercifully forgetting all about their melting-down mother as well.
Unfortunately, however, in the midst of laying out picnic rugs and chopped vegetables, said melting-down mother was suddenly overcome with un-Zen-like rage at Roxster for putting her into such a meltdown and sent off a blistering texting rant which went as follows:
Broke off briefly to graciously pour out some of my giant bottle of Pimm’s for Farzia and the other mothers.
Then turned back to the group, commenting flatteringly upon the delicious picnic, before returning to my text with an apologetic smile suggesting that I was a very busy and important businesswoman and not just texting farts to a toy boy who had dumped me unequivocally for being too old.
The phone vibrated.
Roxster:
Me:
Quickly checked the children – Billy was running round maniacally with a group of boys and Mabel and another small girl were cheerfully saying obscurely mean things to each other – then returned to my texting exchange.
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
‘Enjoying supporting the sporting activities?’
It was Mr Wallaker, positively sneering down at my iPhone. Was just trying to get up, which, because I’d been sitting on my knees for so long, involved crashing onto all fours, when the starter pistol went off for the first race.
In that split second, I saw Mr Wallaker freeze, and his hand whip to his hip as if for a gun. I could see the powerful body tensed beneath his sports shirt, the muscle in his cheek working, eyes casing the playing fields. As the egg-and-spoon racers wobbled off the starting blocks, he blinked, as if remembering himself, then glanced round sheepishly to see if anyone had noticed.
‘Everything all right?’ I said, raising one eyebrow in an attempt to mimic his usual supercilious manner, which may not have been entirely successful, owing to my still being on all fours.
‘Absolutely,’ he said, his cool blue eyes levelly meeting mine. ‘Just a slight issue I have with . . . spoons.’
Then he turned and jogged off towards the egg-and-spoon finishing line. I stared after him. What was that about? Was he delusional, dissatisfied with his mundane life and filled with Bond fantasies? Or was he the sort of person who dresses up as Oliver Cromwell and fights pretend battles at the weekends?
As the sporting events got under way, I put the iPhone away and started to focus. ‘Come on, Mabel,’ I said, ‘it’s Billy’s long jump.’
As they measured Billy’s jump a cheer went up and he leaped into the air.
‘I told you, dammit!’ said Mabel.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Dey do have tape measuring in the Kwintoflon.’
‘Yes, it is an increasingly popular athletic category.’
It was Mr Wallaker and, teetering behind him, a strange, out-of-place woman I hadn’t seen before.
‘Could I possibly have a drop of that Pimm’s?’ She was wearing a white, expensive-looking crocheted dress and high-heeled mules with gold things on. Her face had that slightly peculiar look which people have when they’ve had work done which obviously seems fine when they’re staring at the mirror but looks weird as soon as they move their face.
‘Pimm’s?’ she said to Mr Wallaker. ‘Dear?’
‘DEAR’? Could this possibly be Mr Wallaker’s WIFE? How had that one happened?
Mr Wallaker looked uncharacteristically discombobulated. ‘Bridget, this is . . . this is Sarah. Don’t worry, I’ll do the Pimm’s, you go to Billy,’ he said quietly.
‘Come on, Mabel,’ I said, as Billy galloped over like an exuberant puppy, bits of shirt and sash flying in the wind, and buried his head in my dress.
As we started packing up the things before the prize-giving, the weird, drunk Mr-Wallaker-wife teetered over to us again.
‘Could I have some more Pimm’s?’ she slurred. I began to think I quite liked her really. It’s always so nice to meet someone more badly behaved than oneself.
Then she said, ‘Thanks you,’ peering at me with her surprised eyes. ‘Not often I meet someone your age who’s still got a real face.’
‘Someone who’s still got a real face’? During the prize-giving I couldn’t help regurgitating the phrase. ‘Someone your age with a real face’? What did she mean? That I was daring to go around without having Botox? Oh God, oh God. Maybe Talitha was right. I was going to die of loneliness because I was so wrinkly. No wonder Roxster had dumped me.
As soon as the prize-giving was over and Billy and Mabel absorbed with their friends, I dived into the clubhouse to recover my composure, stopping in appalled dismay at a poster on the noticeboard:
And another:
Furtively typing the Advice and Support number into my iPhone, I stumbled into the Ladies and surveyed myself under the harsh, unforgiving light of an unshaded bulb. Mr Wallaker’s wife was right. The skin around my eyes was becoming, even as I watched, a mass of wrinkles; chin and jowls were sagging, neck like a turkey, marionette lines rushing from my mouth to my chin in manner of Angela Merkel. As I stared I could almost see my hair turning into a tight grey perm. It had finally happened. I was an old lady.
THE DEEP FREEZE
Tuesday 18 June 2013
136lb (inc. 1lb of botulism).
I mean, lots of people do Botox, don’t they? It’s not like having a facelift. ‘Exactly,’ said Talitha, when she gave me the number. ‘It’s just like going to the dentist!’
Went down into basement off Harley Street feeling like was going to back-street abortionist.
‘I don’t want to look weird,’ I said, trying to replace the image of Mr Wallaker’s wife with that of Talitha.
‘No,’ said the strange foreign-sounding Botox doctor. ‘Too many peoples looks weirds.’
Felt tiny pricking sensation in forehead.
‘Just goweeng to do your mouse now. You are going to laave eet. You don do your mouse, zee face start to droop so you look meeesrable. Like ze Queen.’
I thought about this. Actually it might be true. The Queen does quite often look as if she’s unhappy or disapproving and she probably isn’t really. Maybe the Queen should have Botox in her mouth!
Came out, blinking in the lights of Harley Street and grimacing my face as the doctor had told me to.
‘Bridget!’
I looked across the road, startled. It was Woney, wife of Cosmo.
As she hurried across I blinked at her. Woney looked . . . different. Could she possibly have had . . . hair extensions? Her hair was a good six inches longer than it had been at Talitha’s party and dark brown, not grey. And instead of her usual high-necked duchess dress she was wearing a fitted peach frock with a beautiful neckline, which showed off her waist, plus high heels.
‘You look fantastic,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Thank you. It was . . . well, what you said last year at Magda’s drinks. And then after Talitha’s party I thought . . . and Talitha told me where to get my hair done and . . . had some Botox, but don’t tell Cosmo. And how is it going, with your young man? I’ve just been sitting next to one at a charity lunch. It’s absolutely marvellous, isn’t it, doing a bit of flirting?!’
What could I say? Telling her he’d dumped me for being too old would be like telling the troops in the First World War trenches that it looked as though the Germans were winning.
‘There’s everything to be said for the younger man,’ I said. ‘You look fabulous.’
And she teetered off, giggling, and I could swear, at two in the afternoon, slightly drunk.
Well, at least something good has come out of it all, I muttered to myself. And her Botox looked great, so maybe mine would too!
Friday 21 June 2013
Remaining consonants able to pronounce 0.
2.30 p.m. Oh my God. Oh my God. Something really weird is happening to my mouth. It’s all swelling up inside.
2.35 p.m. Just looked in mirror. Lips are sticking out. Mouth is puffed up and sort of paralysed.
2.40 p.m. Billy’s school just rang about the bassoon lessons and cannot speak properly. Cannot easily say Ps or Bs or Fs. What am I going to do? Am going to be like this for next three months.
2.50 p.m. Have started drooling. Cannot control mouth so drool is coming out of side of mouth like – ironically enough given objective was to look younger – stroke ‘victim’ in old people’s home. Have to keep dabbing at it with a tissue.
2.55 p.m. Called up Talitha and tried to expbflain.
‘But it shouldn’t do that. You should go back. Something must have gone wrong. It’s probably an allergic reaction. It’ll wear off.’
3.15 p.m. Have got to do school run. Actually it will be fine. Will simply drape a scarf round my mouth. People don’t notice specific bits of other people, they see the whole.
3.30 p.m. Collected Mabel, with scarf draped around mouth like Masked Raider. Took scarf off gratefully in car, and turned round to do usual complex body-contorting movement in order to get the seat belt into the thing. At least Mabel hasn’t noticed, munching happily away at her snack.
3.45 p.m. Ugh, traffic is terrible. Why do people drive these enormous SUV things in London? It’s like once they’re in one, they think they’re driving a tank and everyone has to get out of their . . .
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes, Mabel.’
‘Your mouth looks all funny.’
‘Oh,’ I said, successfully avoiding consonants.
‘Why is your mouth all funny?’
Attempted to say ‘because’ but fuffing noise came out: ‘Pfecase I’pf . . .’
‘Mummy, why are you talking funny?’
‘It’s pfine, Bfafell, just by bouth is a bit pfoorly.’
‘What did you say, Mother?’
‘It’s all good, Daughter,’ I managed. You see, if I can just stick to vowels and guttural and sibilant consonants it’s bpffine!
4 p.m. Put scarf round mouth again and took worried-looking Mabel by her little hand, into the Junior Branch.
Billy was playing football. Tried to yell, but how could I say ‘Bfpilly’?
‘Oi,’ I attempted to shout. ‘Illy!’ Billy glanced up briefly, then carried on playing football. ‘Illy!’
How was I going to get him out of the playground? And they were having such a nice time running about but then had only got five minutes left on the car because it was in a loading bay.
‘ILLYYYYYY!’ I yelled.
‘Everything OK?’
I turned. It was Mr Wallaker. ‘A muffler? Are you cold? Doesn’t feel very cold to me,’ he said, rubbing his hands as if to check out the general temperature. He was wearing a blue businessman-type shirt and I could sense his lean, annoyingly fit body through it.
‘Bbdentist.’
‘I’m sorry?’
I quickly moved the scarf, said ‘Bbdentist’ again and put the scarf back. There was a quick flicker of amusement in his eyes.
‘Mummy’th mouth’th all funny,’ Mabel said.
‘Poor Mummy,’ said Mr Wallaker, bending down to Mabel. ‘What’s going on with your shoes? Have you got them on the wrong feet?’
Oh God. Was so preoccupied with Botox trauma did not notice. Mr Wallaker was swapping them efficiently.
‘Billy won’t come,’ said Mabel in her deep gruff voice, looking at him with her grave expression.
‘Really?’ Mr Wallaker got to his feet. ‘Billy!’ he called down authoritatively. Billy looked up, startled.
Mr Wallaker jerked his head to beckon him, at which Billy obediently trotted through the gate towards us.
‘Your mum was waiting for you. You knew that. Next time your mum is waiting for you, you come straight away. Got it?’
‘Yes, Mr Wallaker.’
He turned to me. ‘Are you OK?’
Suddenly, horrifyingly, felt my eyes filling with tears.
‘Billy. Mabel. Your mum’s been to the dentist and she’s feeling poorly. Now. I want you to be a little lady and a little gentleman and be nice to her.’
‘Yes, Mr Wallaker,’ they said, like automatons, putting out their hands to hold mine.
‘Very good. And, Mrs Darcy?’
‘Yes, Mr Wallaker?’
‘I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. You looked all right in the first place.’
When we reached our road, I suddenly realized I was driving on autopilot and had got the whole way home without noticing anything.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes?’ I said, thinking, ‘They know, they know, we’re on terribly flimsy ground, and their mother is a Botoxed, failed cougar idiot who’s going to crash the car, and doesn’t know what she’s doing, what she’s supposed to be doing or how she’s supposed to do it, and they’re going to be taken into care by the Social Services and—’
‘Do dinosaurs have cold blood?’
‘Yes. Ubf, no?’ I said as I parked the car. Do they? ‘I fwmean, what are they? Are they repfhtiles or like phwdolpfhwins?’
‘Mummy, how long are you going to carry on talking like this?’
‘Can we have spag bog?’ said Mabel.
‘Yupf,’ I said, parking the car outside the house.
When we got inside it was all warm and cosy and I soon had the spag bog (supermarket ready-prepared and possibly containing horse but still) bubbling on the stove. They were sitting on the sofa listening to the annoying American-cartoons-where-actors-talk-in-high-pitched-hysterical-voices, but looking so sweet. Leaving the horse spaghetti, I sat down with them and pulled them into a hug-knot, and I buried my frozen face in their messy heads and soft necks, feeling their little hearts beating against mine, and thought how lucky I was, just to have them.
After a while Billy raised his head. ‘Mummy,’ he whispered softly, a faraway look in his eye.
‘Mbffff?’ I murmured, heart overflowing with love.
‘The spaghetti is on fire.’
Oh dear. Had left spaghetti in the pan with the dry bits leaning over the edge at a sharp angle, intending to squidge them down when the other end softened, but somehow they had tilted down and caught fire.
‘I’ll get de fire extinglewish,’ said Mabel calmly, as if this were an everyday occurrence. Which of course it is not.
‘Noo!’ I said, berserk, grabbing a tea towel and throwing it on the pan, at which the tea towel also caught fire and the smoke alarm went off.
Suddenly felt the splash of cold water. Turned to see Billy pouring a jug of cold water over the whole thing, extinguishing the flames and leaving a smouldering, but extinguished, mess on the cooker. He was grinning delightedly. ‘Can we eat it now?’
Mabel too was looking thrilled. ‘Can we toast marshbellowth?’
So (once Billy had turned the smoke alarm off) we did toast barshbellows. On the fire. In the fireplace. And it was one of our nicest evenings.
THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
Saturday 22 June 2013
136lb, calories 3844, packets of grated mozzarella consumed 2, boyfriends 0, possibility of boyfriends 0, combined alcohol units consumed by self and the friends 47.
‘Well, at least she’s not a Born-Again Virgin,’ said Tom. ‘Rather the opposite if you ask me. More like a Born-Again Nymphomaniac. With a frozen face. Have we run out of wine?’
‘There’s some more in the fridge,’ I said, getting up. ‘But you see—’
‘Tom, do be quiet, darling,’ chided Talitha. ‘Her face looks really, really good now the drooling’s stopped.’
‘The key thing is, she has to get over the toy boy,’ said Jude, who is STILL going out with Wildlifephotographerman.
‘It’s not just that, it’s—’ I tried to get in.
‘It’s the ego, it’s the ego which is at stake.’ Tom was pretending to be professional but was completely drunk. ‘It’s not a rejection. A person who goes from one extreme to the other like that isn’t rejecting you. He’s just caught between his heart and his head and—’
‘Bridget, I did warn you that one must never, EVER fall in love with a toy boy,’ interrupted Talitha. ‘One has to be in control, otherwise the whole dynamic becomes a total disaster. I forbid you to re-engage with him. Tom, darling, could you just fix me a teensy-weensy vodka with lots of ice and a splash of soda?’
‘He’s not going to re-engage with me. I sent him a texting rant about farting,’ I said.
‘Number one,’ said Talitha, ‘he will re-engage, because his exit was a bang not a whimper, and number two, you are NOT to re-engage or it will become a whimper. Once a man has dumped you, taking him back is a sign of low self-esteem and desperation and he will do NOTHING but fuck you around.’
‘But Mark took me back and—’
‘Roxster,’ said Tom, ‘is not Mark.’
At this, I burst into silent, gasping sobs.
‘Oh God,’ said Jude. ‘We have to find her someone else and quickly. I’m setting her up on OkCupid. What shall I put as her age?’
‘No, don’t,’ I sobbed. ‘I have to Take the Stick, like it says in Zen and the Art of Falling in Love. I have to be punished. I’ve neglected the children and—’
‘They’s fine! You’se gone mad. Where’ye put your iPhoto library?’
‘Jude,’ said Tom, ‘leave her alone, leave her to me. I. Am ssprofessional. I. Am a doctor of pyscholosphy.’
There was silence for a moment. ‘Thanks you,’ said Tom. ‘You are dealing with six things in a relationship. Theirs fantasy about you. Theirs fantasy about the relationship, your fantasy about them, their fantasy about your fantasy about themselves and – how many is that? Oh. Their fantasy about . . . thems!’
Then Tom rose sententiously, walked calmly, if unsteadily, to the fridge, returned with a packet of chocolate buttons and a bottle of Chardonnay, and pulled a packet of Silk Cut out of his jacket pocket.
‘Some things neeever change!’ he said. ‘Nows opens your mouth and takes your medicines. Thassas a good girl.’
When I woke up in the morning, I was all tucked up with a selection of soft toys, a copy of Thelma and Louise, and a note from all three of them saying: ‘We will always love you.’
However, when I picked up my phone there was also a text from Jude with an OkCupid login and password.
THE YAWNING VOID
Monday 24 June 2013
135lb, texts from Roxster 0, emails from Roxster 0, phone calls from Roxster 0, voicemails from Roxster 0, tweets from Roxster 0, Twitter messages from Roxster 0.
9.15 p.m. Children are asleep. OH GOD, I’M SO LONELY. I miss Roxster. Now that the bubble has burst, and I have realized Mark is still gone, the children still have no father, and all the other complicated, unfixable things, I just quite simply and straightforwardly miss Roxster. Is so weird going from total closeness to . . . nothing. Total cyberspace emptiness. The text is silent. No emails from Roxster. He no longer tweets. I cannot get on his Facebook because to do that I would have to join Facebook which I know is emotional suicide, and then ask to be his friend on Facebook and then find loads of pictures of him snogging thirty-year-olds. Have reread the old messages and emails and there is just nothing left of Roxby McDuff now, at all.
Had not really stopped to think how much Roxster meant to me because I really was being Buddhist and staying in the moment. Had not realized we were building a little world together: the farts, the vomit, jokes about food and our favourite pubs, and the barnacle’s penis. Every time something funny happens want to text it to Roxster. And then realize, with cold, lurching remembrance, that Roxster doesn’t want to hear about all the funny little things any more, because he’s doubtless hearing funny details of the life of someone who is twenty-three and likes Lady Gaga.
10 p.m. Just got into bed. Cold empty boring bed. When am I ever going to have sex again or wake up with someone as young and beautiful as Roxsterrrrrrrr?
10.05 p.m. Fuck him with his fucking curry! I absolutely do not care about Roxster any more whatsoever. Pah! He was simply a curry-eating . . . Callow Gigolo! Have deleted him from contacts and will not correspond with or see or ask to see him ever again ever. He is deleted.
10.06 p.m. But I lurrrrrrrrrrve him.
Tuesday 25 June 2013
Number of mean texts made up to send to Roxster in case Roxster texts me 33.
9.15 p.m. OH GOD, I’M SO LONELY. Keep thinking maybe Roxster will text that we should have a drink, and keep making up imaginary haughty texts in reply:
Or:
Wednesday 26 June 2013
9.15 p.m. OH GOD, I’M SO LONELY.
9.16 p.m. Have just had brilliant idea! Will text Leatherjacketman!
9.30 p.m. Texting exchange went as follows:
Me:
10.30 p.m. Leatherjacketman:
Thursday 27 June 2013
9.15 p.m. OH GOD, I’M SO LONELY. Maybe will call Daniel and see if he will take me out to cheer me up!
11 p.m. Daniel has not replied. Is not like Daniel. Maybe he is currently getting married.
Friday 28 June 2013
3 a.m. Billy just got into my bed, sobbing. I think he’d had a bad dream. He put his arms round me, all hot and sweaty, and clung to me. ‘I need you, Mummy.’
He does. They do. And there’s no one else. I can’t afford to get into a mess like this, trying to fill up a void with stupid men. Come on, pull yourself together.
7 a.m. Woke up sleepily and looked at Billy, warm and exquisitely beautiful on my pillow. Started giggling, remembering wailing self-pityingly about Roxster, ‘When am I ever going to wake up with someone as young and beautiful as that again?’
You see? Simple! Even younger and more beautiful.
JUST THE WAY THEY ARE
Friday 28 June 2013 (continued)
10 a.m. Starting to feel worried about Daniel. For all his, well, Daniel-ism, since Mark died he has always got back straight away if I call. Ooh! Telephone.
10.30 a.m. Had forgotten about conference call with George from Greenlight, Imogen and Damian.
‘Right – we’re all in the office, you’ll be pleased to hear,’ George began. ‘Now here’s the thing.’ There was sploshing in the background. ‘If you talk to Saffron about the pages you are not to give her any idea that you are not one hundred per cent in love with Stock—’
‘George?’ I said suspiciously. ‘Where are you and what is that sloshing noise?’
‘In the office. It’s just . . . coffee. OK. Ambergris is into Stockholm so don’t—’
There was an odd, rubbery, slithering squeak, a giant splash – I mean, really like something huge had fallen into a large body of water – a muffled shout, then silence.
‘Right!’ said Imogen. ‘Shall we see what happened there and call you back?’
11 a.m. Just called Talitha to see if she had spoken to Daniel lately.
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you heard?’
The thing is, Daniel has always had addictive tendencies, which have got worse as he has got older. There was a period when everyone was saying, ‘I’m so worried about Daniel,’ in judgemental voices, as he behaved increasingly outrageously at dinner parties. Various glamorous women tried to ‘fix’ him until eventually he was shipped off to a treatment facility in Arizona and returned looking fresh-faced and a little sheepish. As far as we all knew, he was fine. But it seems a recent break-up with the latest glamorous woman catapulted him into a dazzling spree, taking him through the entire contents of his 1930s cocktail cabinet in a single weekend. He was found in a terrible state last Monday morning by his cleaning lady and now he is in the drugs and drink ward of the same hospital where I went to the Obesity Clinic.
Oh God, oh God, and I let Billy and Mabel stay the night with him.
11.30 a.m. Imogen just called back. It seems that George, rather than, as claimed, being in his office slurping coffee, was in a dinghy on the Irrawaddy River to which he had retreated from his luxury indigenous-style houseboat in order to ‘get a signal’. Somehow, the swell from a passing executive speedboat had unbalanced the dinghy, catapulting George into the murky waters of the Irrawaddy, shortly followed by his iPhone.
George was fine, but the loss of the iPhone was catastrophic. I decided to leave Greenlight to deal with the aftermath and hotfoot it round to see Daniel.
2 p.m. Just back. Scary. St Catherine’s Hospital is a bewildering visual mix of Victorian prison, 1960s doctor’s surgery and the Yemen. I wandered, unfocused, until I found the right block, bought Daniel newspapers in the gift shop and a card with a duck on it saying: ‘Stay afloat’, adding in pen: ‘Dirty Bastard’, then impulsively put inside: ‘Wherever you go and whatever you do I’ll always love you.’ One doesn’t want to ENABLE, but I could imagine everyone was going to come in and tick him off.
The ward was a ‘locked ward’. Pressed on the green button. Eventually a lady in a burka appeared and let me in.
‘I’m here to see Daniel Cleaver.’
She didn’t seem to recognize the name, just another one on her clipboard.
‘Over there to the left. First bed behind the curtain.’
I recognized Daniel’s bag and his coat but the bed was empty. Had Daniel done a runner? I started trying to tidy up, then a strange tramp-like figure appeared in winceyette hospital pyjamas, unshaven, with wild hair and a black eye.
‘Who are you?’ he said suspiciously.
‘It’s me, Bridget!’
‘Jones!’ he said, as if a light bulb had come on in his head. Just as quickly it went out, and he stumbled over to the bed. ‘You could at least have told me you were coming. Might have cleaned up a bit.’
He lay down and closed his eyes.
‘Silly arse,’ I said.
He fumbled for my hand. He was making a very strange noise.
‘What happened? Why can’t you breathe?’
A flicker came into his eye, a glimpse of the old Daniel.
‘Well, the thing is, Jones,’ he said, pulling me over to him, ‘went on a bit of a bender, to tell you the truth. Pretty much drank through everything. I delightedly fastened upon what I took to be a bottle of crème de menthe, you know, the green stuff, drank the whole thing down.’ His face broke into the familiar rueful smirk. ‘It turned out to be Fairy Liquid.’
We both started shaking with laughter. I know it was a potentially tragic situation but it was pretty funny. But then Daniel started choking, making a wheezing noise, and bubbles started appearing out of his mouth. You could see exactly what had happened. It’s like when you run out of dishwasher tablets, and think it would be a good idea to put washing-up liquid in instead and it all froths up inside.
The nurse rushed over and sorted him out. Then he picked up the card and opened it. For a second he looked as if he was going to cry, then he shoved it back down on the table, just as a glamorous leggy blonde appeared.
‘Daniel,’ said the blonde, in a way which made me want to flick my hair at her and give her nits. ‘Look at you! You should be ashamed of yourself. It has to stop.’
She picked up the card. ‘What’s this? Is this from you?’ she said accusingly. ‘You see, this is his problem! All his bloody friends: “Dear old Daniel.” It’s just completely enabling.’
‘Best be off then,’ I said, getting up.
‘No, Jones, don’t,’ said Daniel.
‘Oh, please,’ snorted the girl, just as Talitha appeared carrying a basket of edible gift items, wrapped in cellophane and topped with a big bow.
‘You see? You see?’ said the glamorous girl. ‘This is exactly what I mean.’
‘And WHAT do you mean by that . . . sugar?’ said Talitha. ‘WHO exactly are you and WHAT does this have to do with you? I have known Daniel for twenty years and slept with him, on and off, for most of them . . .’
Almost burst out, ‘What??’ Was Talitha sleeping with Daniel when I was sleeping with Daniel? But then I thought, ‘What’s the point?’
I made my excuses and left, thinking, really, after a certain age, people are just going to do what they’re going to do and you’re either going to accept them as they are or you’re not. Unsure, however, if should altogether leave the children in Daniel’s charge again, at least until he’s been back to rehab, or can conclusively distinguish a fork from a hairbrush.
LET’S FACE THE MUSIC AND TEA-DANCE
Saturday 29 June 2013
Just set off for Hampstead Heath and had to come back as seemed like giant bucket of water was being emptied on our heads. Weather has been disgusting this summer. Rain, rain, rain and freezing cold, as if there is NO summer. Is completely intolerable.
Sunday 30 June 2013
Gaah! Is suddenly boiling hot. Don’t have sunblock or hats and is too hot to stay outside. How are we supposed to manage in this unbearable heat? Is completely intolerable.
Monday 1 July 2013
6 p.m. Right! Am going to stop being so sorry for myself lest I end up accidentally drinking Fairy Liquid. The end of the school year is almost here with its absorbing matrix of plays, school trips, pyjama days, emails about presents for the teachers (including a very strict one from Perfect Nicolette about everyone sticking to chipping in for the John Lewis vouchers and not buying their own Jo Malone candles), and – generating the most unfeasible number of mass emails of all – Billy’s Summer Concert. Billy is going to play ‘I’d Do Anything’ from Oliver! as a solo on his bassoon. The concert has been organized by Mr Wallaker, who seems now to be including half the music department in his military-style takeover, and is to be held at sunset in the grounds of Capthorpe House, a stately home up the A11.
Presumably Mr Wallaker will be dressed as Oliver Cromwell and his ‘so nice to meet someone with a real face’ wife will have had four pints of extra filler put in her face to celebrate. Oops, back in the knife box, Miss Sharp. Must read more of The Little Book of Buddhism: ‘We do not possess our home, our children or even our own body. They are only given to us for a short time to treat with care and respect.’
Oh, no! I still haven’t made the dentist appointment for Billy and Mabel. The longer I leave it, the more I daren’t, since clearly their teeth are now riddled with holes, they will end up like extras in Pirates of the Caribbean and it will be all my fault.
But at least am treating own body like a temple. Am going to Zumba.
8 p.m. Just back. Usually love Zumba, with young, dark, long-haired Spanish couple, taking it in turns to lead ‘numbers’, flinging their hair about, stomping angrily like horses, transporting one into a world of Barcelona or possibly Basque-coast nightclubs, and firelit Gypsy encampments of undetermined national extraction.
But this week, the thrilling duo were replaced by a zingy-pingy woman with blonde fringe, a bit like Olivia Newton-John in Grease. Exotically sexual Zumba moves were strangely juxtaposed with gay, determined grin, as if to say, ‘Super-dooper, nothing sexual or dirty about this at all!’
On top of that, the grinning woman made us do not only hand-rolling moves, but also ‘imaginary shaking-off-water-from-wet-hands’ moves, not to mention ‘starbursts’. As whole Catalan nightclub fantasy collapsed like house of cards, looked around to realize class was peopled not by wild Gypsy youths, but a collection of women whom members of an unenlightened male-dominated patriarchal society might describe as ‘middle-aged’.
Have sinking feeling that very concept of attending Zumba may be linked to attempt to relive long-gone days of sexual possibility – as evidenced by St Oswald’s House: even there, Zumba has entirely replaced the concept of ‘tea-dancing’.
Staggered upstairs to somewhat galling sight of tall, thin-without-Zumba Chloe cradling children like Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna and reading The Wind in the Willows. Children looked up excitedly for usual post-Zumba spectacle of me crawling up, red in the face, on verge of heart attack.
As soon as Chloe left, Billy and Mabel dispensed with The Wind in the Willows, to egg self on into hilarious game of throwing contents of laundry basket down stairs. By time had got them to sleep, cleared up overexcited vomit, etc., was so exhausted that stuffed down two giant fried turkey croquettes (cold) and a three-inch wedge of banana cake. Resolved to enrol in proper salsa or meringue class as soon as possible because, actually (airily), it is the purer form of Latin dance which interests me. Merengue, I mean. Not meringue.
GETTING ONLINE
Tuesday 2 July 2013
133lb (thank you, Zumba/tea-dancing), dating sites investigated 13, dating profiles read 87, attractive dating profiles read 0, dating profiles set up 2, number of disastrous relationships Jude has formed online 17, number of promising relationships Jude has formed online 1 (encouraging).
11 p.m. Jude, who is STILL going out with Wildlifephotographerman, just came round after the kids were asleep, determined to make me get online.
I watched her clicking on dating sites with messianic frenzy and making lists: ‘Scuba-diver’, ‘Likes Hotel Costes’, ‘Read A Hundred Years of Solitude’ – yeah, right. ‘You see, you have to make notes, Bridge, otherwise you’ll mix them all up when you message them.’
‘Don’t you ever want to just, like, give up?’ I said.
‘No, or I would have ended up sucking lollipops with a faraway look in my eye.’
Realized with embarrassment I had picked up a lollipop and was sliding it in and out of my mouth.
‘The thing is, Bridge, it’s a percentages game.’
Jude, having burst through the ‘glass ceiling’ of the financial world, is, I suppose, bound to see it in these terms.
‘You can’t afford to take anything personally. You’re going to get stood up, you’re going to get eighteen-stone people whose pictures are of someone else. But with enough experience – and skill! – you’ll weed through that dross.’
We then went into a Greatest Hits medley of the online dross Jude had successfully weeded through to find Wildlifephotographerman: Sexualhumiliationman (of course!), Marriedwithbabyman – who took Jude out, snogged her, then included her in the global text saying his wife had had a baby – and SkydiverGraphicdesignerman – who did turn out to be a graphic designer, but also, it emerged, a devout Muslim who didn’t believe in sex before marriage, but, bizarrely, also liked to spend his weekends Morris dancing.
‘And somewhere,’ Jude said, ‘somewhere out there, it’ll just take one click, and you’ll be home.’
‘But who would want a fifty-something single mother with two small children?’
‘Take a look,’ she said, signing me in for a free trial on SingleParentMix.com. ‘They’re just normal people like you and me. They’re not weirdos. I’ll put forty-nine.’
A column of photos popped up of strange men in wire glasses and striped becollared shirts hanging over the folds of their stomachs.
‘It looks like a line-up of serial killers,’ I said. ‘How can they be single fathers? Unless they’ve murdered the mothers?’
‘Yes, well, maybe that wasn’t a very good search,’ Jude said briskly. ‘How about this?’
She opened up the profile she’d made for me on OkCupid.
Actually, when I looked, there were some really quite cute ones on there. But oh, the loneliness – the profiles giving away months or maybe years of heartbreak and disappointment and insult.
Someone who’d actually picked as their username ‘Isthereanyoneout_there?’ had as their profile:
I’m a nice normal guy who just wants a nice normal woman. If your photo is from 15 years ago, then MOVE ON! If you’re fucked up, married, desperate, passive-aggressive, not a woman, shamelessly gold-digging, emotionally sadistic, superficial, self-obsessed, illiterate, just looking for quick sex, just looking to indulge in endless streams of messaging then not meet, just looking to get a date to massage your ego and stand me up because you can’t be bothered, then MOVE ON!
And then there were the profiles from married men quite openly saying they want uncomplicated sex.
‘Why don’t they just go on MarriedAffair.co.uk?’ sniffed Jude.
Wednesday 3 July 2013
8.30 a.m. Billy’s football comic just dropped through the letter box and I took it downstairs saying, ‘Billy! Your Match.com’s arrived!’
KBO
Wednesday 3 July 2013 (continued)
133lb, negative thoughts 5 million, positive thoughts 0, bottles of Fairy Liquid drunk 0 (you see? Could be worse).
9.15 p.m. Right. Super! Is school concert tomorrow and is going to be perfectly fine. Mabel is staying at Rebecca’s so I don’t have to worry about keeping tabs on both of them at the same time. Of course, many, many of the fathers will be away on business, or perhaps busy tapping away on MarriedAffair.co.uk! And even if Roxster was still around, he wouldn’t have come to the school concert, would he? He’d have felt ridiculous with all those people who have children and are so much older than him.
9.30 p.m. Just looked at news online. Whole royal baby frenzy is not helping: perfect young couple of Roxster’s age, starting life, doing everything perfectly, in the perfect way and at the perfect time.
9.45 p.m. Went up to check on Billy and Mabel.
‘Mummy,’ said Billy, ‘will Daddy know I’m doing the concert?’
‘I think so,’ I whispered.
‘Will I do it all right?’
‘Yes.’
I held his hand till he was asleep. There was a full moon again and I watched it over the rooftops. What would it be like now if I was going to the Summer Concert with Mark? He would have leaned over my shoulder the way he used to, whizzed through the mass picnic emails, deleted them and simply replied: ‘I will bring the hummus and the black bin liners.’
I would be one hundred per cent looking forward to it. It would be a one hundred per cent lovely thing. Oh, come on. Brace up. Keep Buggering On.
THE SUMMER CONCERT
Thursday 4 July 2013
We roared up through the landscaped parkland. We were late, because Billy was trying to map the route on the iPhone and we came off at the wrong junction. Clambered out to the smell of cut grass, the chestnut leaves hanging heavy and green, the light turning golden.
Staggering under the weight of the bassoon case, the rug, my handbag, the picnic basket and a second basket with Diet Cokes and oatmeal cookies that wouldn’t fit in the first basket, Billy and I headed towards the path marked: ‘CONCERT THIS WAY’.
We came out into the open and gasped. It looked like a painting: a gracious, wisteria-clad house, with an old stone terrace and lawns leading down to a lake. The terrace was laid out like a stage, with music stands and a grand piano, and rows of chairs below. Billy held my hand tightly as we stood wondering where to go.
Boys were running around setting up the instruments and music stands, all excited. Then Jeremiah and Bikram shouted, ‘Billy!’ and he looked up hopefully at me. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring the stuff.’
As I watched him go, I saw the parents laying out their picnics on the lawn next to the lake. No one was alone. They were all in lovely couples which had presumably not been formed on Match.com or PlentyofFish or Twitter, but in the days when people still did meet each other in real life. Started disastrously imagining being there with Mark again, on time because he’d driven the car and operated the satnav, carrying a modest amount of stuff which Mark would have edited before departure, all holding hands, Billy and Mabel between us. And we’d be together, the four of us, on the rug instead of—
‘Did you bring the kitchen table?’
I turned. Mr Wallaker looked unexpectedly glamorous in black suit trousers and a white shirt, slightly unbuttoned. He was looking towards the house, adjusting his cufflinks. ‘Want a hand with all that?’
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ I said as a Tupperware box fell out of the basket, spilling egg sandwiches onto the grass.
‘Leave it,’ he ordered. ‘Give me the bassoon. I’ll get someone to bring the rest down. Got anyone to sit with?’
‘Please don’t speak to me like I’m one of your schoolboys,’ I said. ‘I’m not Bridget No-Mates Darcy and I’m not helpless and I can carry a picnic basket and just because you’ve got everything under control, and all lakes and orchestras, it doesn’t mean—’
There was a crash on the terrace. An entire section of music stands fell over, sending a cello bouncing off the terrace and down the hill, followed by a shrieking bunch of boys.
‘Totally under control,’ he said, giving a little snort of amusement as a double bass and a tuba crashed over next, bringing more music stands with them. ‘Better go. Give me that.’ He took the bassoon and set off towards the house. ‘Oh, and by the way, your dress,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Yes?’
‘Slightly see-through with the sun behind it.’
I looked down at the dress. Oh, fuck, it was see-through.
‘Good effect,’ he shouted, without looking back.
I stared after him, indignant, confused. He was just . . . just . . . sexist. He was reducing me to a helpless sex object and . . . he was married and . . . just . . . just . . .
I started to pick up the basket when a man in a waiter’s outfit appeared and said, ‘I’ve been asked to carry these down for you, madam,’ and another voice called, ‘Bridget!’ It was Farzia Seth, Bikram’s mum. ‘Come and sit with us!’
It was fine, because the husbands all sat on one side talking about business, so we girls could gossip, occasionally shoving food into overexcited offspring who swooped on us like seagulls.
When it was time for the concert, Nicolette, who was, naturally, Chair of the Concert Committee, started the proceedings with an astonishingly sycophantic speech about Mr Wallaker: ‘Inspiring, invigorating,’ etc., etc.
‘Arousing. Ejaculating. She’s changed her tune a bit since he came up with the stately home,’ muttered Farzia.
‘Is it his stately home?’ I said.
‘I dunno. He fixed it, anyway. And Nicolette’s been completely up his arse ever since. Wonder what the orange wife makes of it.’
As Nicolette finally drew to a close, Mr Wallaker jumped onto the terrace and strode in front of the band, silencing the applause.
‘Thank you,’ he said with a slight smile. ‘I must say I agree with every word. And now – the reason you’re here. I give you – Your. Sensational. Sons.’
And with that he raised his baton, the Big Swing Band burst into an enthusiastic – if slightly out of tune – flourish, and they were off. It was actually completely magical, the light softening, the music ringing out over the grounds.
The performance of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ by the recorder ensemble did not, it’s true, entirely lend itself to six-year-olds on recorders. We were all giggling helplessly, but I was glad to be giggling. Billy was one of the littlest ones, on near the end, and by the time it got to his turn I was beside myself with nerves. I watched him walk over to the piano with his music, looking so small and scared, and I just wanted to go and scoop him up. Then Mr Wallaker strode over, whispered something to Billy and sat down at the piano.
I didn’t know Mr Wallaker could play. He started with a surprisingly professional jazz introduction, and nodded to Billy to begin. Although there were no words, I could hear every one of them as Billy puffed his way painfully through ‘I’d Do Anything’, Mr Wallaker gently following every wrong note and wobble.
I would, Billy, I would do anything for you, I thought, tears welling up. My little boy, with all his struggles.
Applause broke out. Mr Wallaker whispered to Billy and glanced at me. Billy was bursting with pride.
Fortunately Eros and Atticus were taking the stand to perform their own adaptation of ‘The Trout Quintet’ on their flutes, bending and swooping in a pretentious manner which pulled me back from self-congratulatory and existentially despairing tears to suppressed hysteria again. And then it was all over and Billy rushed up, beaming, for a hug and then ran off with his little gang.
It was a warm, liquidy night: beautiful, romantic. The other parents drifted off, wandering down to the lake hand in hand. I sat on the rug on my own for a bit, wondering what to do. I was desperate for a drink, but driving. I realized the bag with the Diet Cokes and oatmeal cookies had got left behind. Glanced at Billy. He was still tearing around with his gang, all biffing each other over the head. I headed up to the bushes, found the bag and looked back at the scene.
Slowly, a huge, orange harvest moon was rising over the woods. Couples were laughing together in their evening clothes, hugging their joint offspring, remembering all the shared years which had brought them there.
I stepped into the bushes where no one could see and wiped away a tear, taking a giant slurp of Diet Coke and wishing it was neat vodka. They were growing up. They weren’t babies any more. It was all going so fast. I realized I was not just sad, but scared: scared of trying not to get lost driving in the dark, scared of all the years ahead of doing this alone: concerts, prize-givings, Christmases, teenagers, problems . . .
‘You can’t even get plastered, can you?’
Mr Wallaker’s shirt looked very white in the moonlight. His profile, half in silhouette, looked almost noble.
‘You all right?’
‘Yes!’ I said indignantly, wiping my fist across my eyes. ‘Why do you keep BURSTING up on me? Why do you keep asking me if I’m all right?’
‘I know when a woman is foundering and pretending not to be.’
He took a step closer. The air was heavy with jasmine, roses.
I breathed unsteadily. It felt as though we were being drawn together by the moon. He reached out, like I was a child, or a Bambi or something, and touched my hair.
‘There aren’t any nits in here, are there?’ he said.
I raised my face, heady with the scent of him, feeling the roughness of his cheek against mine, his lips against my skin . . . then suddenly I remembered all those creepy married guys on the websites and burst out:
‘What are you DOING??? Just because I’m on my own, it doesn’t mean I’m, I’m DESPERATE and FAIR GAME. You’re MARRIED! “Oh, oh, I’m Mr Wallaker. I’m all married and perfect,” and what do you mean, “FOUNDERING”? And I know I’m a rubbish mother and single but you don’t have to rub my nose in it and—’
‘Billy!!!!!! Your mummy’s kissing Mr Wallaker!’
Billy, Bikram and Jeremiah burst out from the bushes.
‘Ah, Billy!’ Mr Wallaker said. ‘Your mummy’s just, er, hurt herself and—’
‘Did she hurt her mouth?’ said Billy, looking puzzled, at which Jeremiah, who had older brothers, spurted out laughing.
‘Ah! Mr Wallaker! I was looking for you!’
Oh GOD. Now it was Nicolette.
‘I was wondering if we should say a few words to the parents, to— Bridget! What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for some oatmeal cookies!’ I said brightly.
‘In the bushes? How odd.’
‘Can I have one? Can I have one?’ The boys, mercifully, started yelling and dive-bombing my bag, so I could bend down, covering my confusion.
‘I mean, I thought it would be nice to round things off,’ Nicolette went on. ‘People want to see you, Mr Wallaker. And hear you. I think you’re fiercely talented, I really do.’
‘Not sure a speech is quite the thing right now. Maybe just go down there and case it out? Would you mind, Mrs Martinez?’
‘No, of course,’ said Nicolette coldly, giving me a funny look, just as Atticus ran up saying, ‘Mummeee, I want to see my therapiiiiiist!’
‘Right,’ said Mr Wallaker, when Nicolette and the boys had disappeared. ‘You’ve made yourself very clear. I apologize. I will go back, to not make a speech.’
He was starting to head off, then turned. ‘But just for the record, other people’s lives are not always as perfect as they appear, once you crack the shell.’
THE HORROR, THE HORROR
Friday 5 July 2013
Dating sites checked 5, winks 0, messages 0, likes 0, online shopping sites visited 12, words of rewrite written 0.
9.30 a.m. Humph. OhMyGod. Well. Humph. ‘Foundering’? Man-whore. Lecherous sexist married bastard. Humph. Right. Must get on with Hedda-ing up – i.e. finding all of Hedda’s lines in the rewritten version and putting them back to the way they were in the first place. Which is actually quite fun!
9.31 a.m. The thing about Internet dating is, the minute you start feeling lonely, confused or desperate you can simply click on one of the sites and it’s like a sweetie shop! There are just millions of other quite plausible people all actually available, at least in theory. Have vision of offices up and down the country full of people pretending to work but clicking on Match.com and OkCupid and somehow getting through the lonely tedium of the day. Right, must get on.
10.31 a.m. Oh God. What was he DOING, Mr Wallaker? Does he do that all the time? It’s completely unprofessional.
What did he mean, ‘foundering’?
10.35 a.m. Just looked up foundering: ‘to proceed in confusion’.
Humph. Am going to go back online.
10.45 a.m. Just logged on:
0 people winked at you. 0 people chose you as their favourite.
0 people sent you a message.
Great.
11 a.m. Look at all these men-tarts. Married, but in an open relationship. You see?
12.15 p.m. Jude’s Internet dating was a nightmare – strings of communication with strangers suddenly left unanswered. I don’t want strange bits of men all over the place. Far better to get on with Leaves. Must figure out how the yacht/honeymoon could work in Sweden rather than Hawaii. I mean, Stockholm is warm in the summer, right? Doesn’t one of the girls from Abba live on an island off Stockholm?
12.30 p.m. Maybe will go on Net-a-Porter and look at the sale.
12.45 p.m. What is happening to me? Just put three dresses into my shopping basket. Then logged off. Then logged on again and realized I felt hurt because none of the dresses had winked back.
1 p.m. Maybe will just look at cute thirty-year-olds on Match.com for a minute.
Mmmm.
1.05 p.m. Just spooled down the line of cute thirty-year-olds and screamed out loud.
There, bold as you please, was a picture of . . . Roxster.
MID-MATCH COLLISION
Friday 5 July 2013 (continued)
‘Roxster30’ was grinning cheerfully, the same picture he has on Twitter. He is, apparently, looking for women aged twenty-five to fifty-five – so it wasn’t because I was too old, it was just because he didn’t . . . he didn’t . . . OH MY GOD. His profile says he has ‘particular fondness for walks on Hampstead Heath’ and ‘people who make me laugh’ and . . . ‘mini-breaks in pubs by rivers, with Full English Breakfasts’. And he really likes skydiving? SKYDIVING?
I mean, it’s OK, isn’t it? It’s just what people do? It’s quite funny, it’s . . .
Suddenly doubled over in pain, in my armchair, over the laptop.
1.10 p.m. Roxster is Online Now! But then I’m Online Now too! Oh God.
1.11 p.m. Quickly logged off and paced deranged around the room, stuffing bits of half-eaten cheese and crushed Nutribars from the bottom of my handbag into my mouth.
What am I to do? What is the etiquette? Cannot possibly log on again and have another look at Roxster, or he will think I am stalking him, or worse – better? – looking at pictures of cute thirty-year-olds to smoothly replace him with another toy boy.
1.15 p.m. Just checked my email which is now, of course, as well as being overrun by Ocado emails, and ‘Staff Present’ emails, and emails from various country pubs I have imagined staying in with Roxster, also inundated with endless emails from SingleParentMix.com and OkCupid and Match.com saying: Wow! You’re proving popular today! and Someone just checked out your profile! and Jonesey49 Someone just winked at you.
Stared closely at two recent emails from Match.com. Jonesey49 Wow! Someone just checked out your profile.
1.17 p.m. Could not find out who they were from because have not paid to properly sign on to Match.com. One of them was from someone aged fifty-nine. And the other aged thirty. It had to be Roxster. It was too much of a coincidence.
1.20 p.m. Wow! Jonesey49. Somebody just winked at you! Again aged thirty.
1.25 p.m. Clearly, Roxster has clocked that I have checked out his profile. What am I going to do? Pretend it hasn’t happened? No, that’s just . . . I mean, the whole thing is just . . . You can’t pretend something like that hasn’t happened, can you? We’re human beings and we did care about each other, I thought. And . . . text from Roxster:
Stared at phone, mind spooling through all the texts I’d made up in case he got in touch:
Instead, impulsively texted back:
There was a pause. Then another ping on the phone.
There was another pause. What was he going to say? Something kind? Something patronizingly meant to be kind? Something apologizing? Something that would hurt?
I stared at it. All those mean things I had planned to say . . . My finger hovered over the phone. And then I simply texted back the truth.
Then immediately thought, ‘Shit! Why didn’t I just put one of the less-mean-but-funny ones? Now he’ll just have got his ego-reassurance and bugger off.’ Text ping.
Another ping.
<*YELLS* JONESEYYYY?>
Me: <*Calm, slightly distracted* Yeeees?>
And we were off!
Roxster:
Me: <*Airy, dismissive* Well, it’s hardly surprising. How dare you draw attention to my age in that impertinent and unnecessary fashion? Oh, oh, look at me, I’m so young and you’re so old.>
Roxster:
I laughed. I was indeed pleased with myself. There was such a rush of joy and relief that we were back with that secure feeling of knowing someone cares, and understands your sense of humour, and it wasn’t all cold and empty and over, we were still there.
But then at the same time there was a dark, lurking fear of getting back into it.
I waited. Texting ping.
THAT’S DISGUSTING!! That’s absolutely against the rules of . . . of . . . Feel like ringing the police! Surely there should be some sort of DATING OMBUDSMAN who legislates against this sort of thing!
Another texting ping. Stared at the phone as if it was a creature in a space movie. I didn’t know what it was going to do next. It might suddenly rear up into a monster, or turn into a gentle little bunny. I opened it.
Looked eerily from side to side. Another texting ping.
What was he saying? Was he saying he’d rethought the whole thing and wanted to be with me? But did I want to be with him?
Roxster:
And again:
Suddenly had flashbacks to all the delicious dinners and aftermaths we had enjoyed and had to stop self texting back:
Maybe Tom was right. Maybe Roxster wasn’t just dismissing me as a sad old bag. Texted:
This was UNHEARD OF. He must be really, really serious. I needed time to digest this.
Another texting ping.
And another.
Was going to text:
So, again, I just texted what was true.
REKINDLING
Thursday 11 July 2013
Days of continuous sunshine 11, raindrops fallen on head 0 (unbelievable).
2 p.m. Is boiling hot. Still! No one can believe their luck. Everyone is out in the streets, bunking off work, drinking, wild for sex and complaining that it is too hot.
Texting is completely back on again with Roxster and he has been lovely, despite Talitha’s dire warnings about taking someone back after they have dumped you. And despite Tom’s dire warnings about people who are All Text and No Trousers, and professional warnings about the fact that I could only expect a future of mixed messages, and had I thought about what I actually wanted – apart from endless texting and sporadic nights of sex?
Roxster has explained about the curry and lateness on the break-up night, and said he wasn’t – as I suspected all along – having a curry with ‘colleagues’. In fact he was sitting on his own, stuffing his face with chicken korma, poppadoms and lager, because he was so confused, and suddenly overcrowded about being a proper boyfriend, and maybe becoming a father figure. And then, after he made his break-up speech, I seemed completely fine about it, almost relieved, delighted to break up, until the farting rant. And then, after that, he didn’t know what to do. And he is cheerful and sweet and light and so much better than lecherous married bastards. We are seeing each other on Saturday: for a walk on Hampstead Heath.
BLIMEY
Saturday 13 July 2013
3 p.m. Frantic preparation. Had to deal with Mum, who is taking Mabel and Billy to tea at Fortnum & Mason (good luck with that one, Mum). ‘Oh, Mabel’s wearing leggings, is she? Where do you keep your colanders?’
Dived out for leg wax and toenail polish, then washed hair and put on the Summer Concert see-through floaty dress, then thought it was bad karma, so changed it to a non-see-through pale pink one. Then got text from Farzia, asking if Billy and Jeremiah were going to football tomorrow as Bikram didn’t want to go unless they all went, then lost my flip-flops but couldn’t wear my other sandals because they’d squash the toenail varnish, then finally got to the pub with two minutes to spare and rushed to the loo to make sure I didn’t have too much make-up on like Barbara Cartland. Eventually sat down in the fabulous sunshine in the garden, like a relaxed, on-time Goddess of Light and Calm, and, as Roxster appeared, a seagull shat on my shoulder.
It was so exciting to see Roxster, looking gorgeous in a bright blue polo shirt, and be falling about laughing again about the seagull, and just having fun, and feeling like children on a spree, only more sexy. And we had a couple of beers, and Roxster had his food, and tried repeatedly to get the seagull poo off my boob and I was so . . . happy!
Then we set off for our walk, and the Heath was teeming with people rejoicing in the sunshine and complaining about it, couples in each other’s arms, and I was part of one too, arm in arm with Roxster. Then we came to a sun-dappled glade and sat down on a bench we’d sat down on often before. And after Roxster had finished laughing about the red dots he’d noticed on my legs from the leg wax, he looked serious. And he started to say that he’d been thinking, and although he really, really wanted to have children of his own, and really, really thought he ought to be with someone his own age, and didn’t know what his friends would say, or what his mum would say, he just didn’t think he would find anyone he got on with the way he got on with me. And he wanted to do it all, the whole thing, properly, and climb trees on the Heath, and be a dad to Billy and Mabel.
I stared at him. I did really heart Roxster, I hearted that he was so beautiful and young and sexy, but more than that hearted who he was and what he stood for. He was funny, and together, and light, and kind, and practical, and emotional but contained. But he was also born when I was twenty-one. And if we’d both been born at the same time – how could we know what would have happened? What I did know as I looked at him, was that I didn’t want to ruin Roxster’s life. And my kids were absolutely without a shadow of a doubt the best thing that I had in my life. I didn’t want to deprive him of doing all that for himself.
Crucially, though, I suspected that, even though he wanted to, Roxster just couldn’t do it. He would try, but then sometime in a week, or six weeks, or six months, he would go all uncertain again and keep shorting out. And the thing about reaching the advanced age of, er, thirty-five was that I just didn’t want all that uncertainty and emotional roller coaster and pain any more. I just couldn’t bear it.
Moreover, I did NOT want to be like Judi Dench with Daniel Craig at the end of Skyfall, the age difference between whom must be about the same as between me and Roxster. But then, in Skyfall, when you think about it, Judi Dench was actually the Bond Girl, not the frizzy-haired one with no character who decided (in a weird anti-feminist twist, surely?) she wanted to be Miss Moneypenny. Judi Dench was the one Daniel Craig really loved, and ended up carrying through the bullets. But then would Daniel Craig actually have had sex with Judi Dench? I mean, if she wasn’t dead? How great if they’d done a beautifully lit sex scene with Judi Dench looking gorgeous in a black La Perla slip. Now there would be a rebranding feminist . . .
‘Jonesey. Are you pretending not to have an orgasm again?’
I looked back, startled, at Roxster who was now down on one knee. How could I have been so rude as to stare into space for so long when . . . God, he was so, so, so gorgeous, but . . .
‘Roxster,’ I blurted, ‘you don’t really mean all this, do you? You’re not actually going to be able to do it.’
Roxby McDuff looked thoughtful for a moment, then laughed ruefully, got to his feet, and shook his head.
‘No, Jonesey, you’re right. I’m actually not.’
Then we hugged each other, with lust and happiness and sadness and tenderness. But I knew that, this time, the game was up. It really was over.
As we let go, I opened my eyes and over Roxster’s shoulder saw Mr Wallaker, standing stock-still and staring at us.
Mr Wallaker caught my eye, impassive, said nothing, and, in his usual fashion, simply strode away.
On the way home, in the midst of confusion, and sadness, and seller’s remorse, and overheating, and shock at Mr Wallaker seeing what looked like an engagement but was actually a break-up, I felt that overwhelming thing that people feel when . . . that I . . . that once again, at a moment of parting, I hadn’t . . . that you absolutely have to tell people that . . . and simultaneously, spookily, the text pinged.
Roxster:
Me:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me: <2 U>
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
I will always heart you. Me too you. Great Big Hug. (Or possibly Hamburger.)
I waited. Was he going to leave me as the final one in the final thread? There was a ping.
Then another ping.
Roxby McDuff: a gentleman to the last.
GIVING IN
Saturday 13 July 2013 (continued)
When I got home, there was an hour before Mum was due back with the kids. I sat down, finally, in an armchair, with a cup of tea. And I just gave in and accepted it all. It was really over with sweet, lovely Roxster. And I was sad, but so it was. And I couldn’t hold all these balls in the air. I couldn’t rewrite a film about an updated Hedda Gabler on a yacht in Hawaii, moved to Stockholm by six different people. I couldn’t do Internet dating with weird strangers. I couldn’t keep this mad matrix of schedules and Zombie Apocalypses and Build-a-Bear parties in my head, and deal with nearly-confusingly-snogging married teachers at the school, and wear Grazia-style clothes and try to have a boyfriend and do a job, and be a mother. I tried to stop myself thinking I should do anything. Check my emails. Go to Zumba. Get on OkCupid. Read the latest insane rewrite of The Leaves on His Yacht.
I just sat there and thought, ‘This will just have to do. Me. The kids. Just let the days flow by.’ I didn’t feel sad, really. I couldn’t remember the feeling of not having to do the next thing. Not having to squeeze the last second out of the day. Or find out why the fridge was making that noise.
And I’d love to say something marvellous came out of it. But it didn’t, really. My bum probably got fatter or something. But I sensed a sort of mental clarity emerging. A sense that what I needed to do now was find some peace.
‘I need to be gentle now,’ I thought, blinking rapidly. ‘It’s a gentle time. Never mind anyone else, we’ll just be us – me, Billy and Mabel. Just feel the wind in our hair, and the rain on our faces. Just enjoy them growing up. Don’t miss it. They’ll be gone soon.’
I stared dramatically ahead, thinking, ‘I am brave, though I am alone,’ then realized that the phone was quacking somewhere. Where was it?
Eventually located phone in the downstairs toilet and jumped in alarm, seeing a string of texts from Chloe.
Just then the doorbell rang. Opened it to find Mum with Billy and Mabel – both crying, hot, sweaty and smeared with cake – on the doorstep.
Got everyone downstairs, telly on, computer on, Mum with a cup of tea when doorbell rang again.
Was Chloe, uncharacteristically in tears.
‘Chloe, I’m so sorry!’ I said. ‘I just turned the phone off for a little bit to just . . . get over something and missed all your—’
‘It’s not that!’ she wailed. ‘It’s Graham.’
It turned out Chloe and Graham had taken out a rowing boat on the Serpentine, and Chloe had prepared an immaculate picnic hamper with cutlery and china, at which Graham said, ‘I have something to say.’
Chloe, of course, thought Graham was going to ask her to marry him. And then he announced that he had met somebody in Houston on YoungFreeAndSingle.com and was getting transferred to Texas to go and live with her.
‘He said I was too perfect,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m not perfect. I just feel I have to pretend to be perfect. And you don’t like me either because you think I’m too perfect too.’
‘Oh, Chloe. I don’t! You’re not perfect!’ I said, throwing my arms around her.
‘Aren’t I?’ she said, looking at me hopefully.
‘No, yes,’ I gabbled. ‘I mean, not perfect, though you are great. And’ – I suddenly felt emotional – ‘I know middle-class working mothers always say this but I genuinely don’t know what I would do without you helping me, and being so perfe— I mean, so great. What I mean is, it’s just a relief that everything in your life isn’t completely perfect, though, obviously, I’m very sorry that that FUCKWIT Graham was so FUCKWITTED as to—’
‘But I thought you’d only like me if I was perfect.’
‘No, I was FRIGHTENED of you because you were perfect, because it made me feel so not perfect.’
‘But I always think YOU’RE perfect!’
‘Mummy, can we go up to our room? Granny’s being weird,’ said Billy, appearing up the stairs.
‘Granny’th got a tail,’ said Mabel.
‘Billy, Mabel!’ said Chloe delightedly. ‘Can I take them upstairs?’
‘Great, I’ll go and see to Granny. Check if she’s grown a tail,’ I said, looking sternly at Mabel and adding reassuringly to Chloe: ‘You’re not perfect.’
‘Aren’t I? You really mean it?’
‘No, really, definitely not perfect at all.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ she said. ‘Neither are you!’ and headed up the stairs with the children, looking and being absolutely perfect.
Got downstairs to find Mum, who, if she did have a tail, had hidden it very well beneath the coat-dress, banging through all the cupboards saying, ‘Where do you put the tea strainer?’
‘I use tea bags,’ I muttered grumpily.
‘Tea bags. Durr! I mean, you might have left the phone on! It’s only responsible if you have children who can’t behave themselves. What have you got on your top? Have you been out in that dress? The trouble with flesh pink is it can wash you out, can’t it?’
I burst into tears, straight in her face.
‘Now come on, Bridget, you’ve got to pull yourself together. You’ve got to soldier on, you can’t . . . you can’t . . . you can’t . . . you can’t . . . you can’t . . .’
I literally thought she was just never going to stop saying ‘you can’t’, but then she burst into tears too.
‘You’re not helping,’ I sobbed. ‘You just think I’m rubbish. You’re always trying to change me and think I’m doing it all wrong and make me wear different . . . COLOURS,’ I wailed.
Mum suddenly snuffled to a halt and stared at me.
‘Oh, Bridget, I’m so sorry,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘I’m so very, very sorry.’
She stumbled awkwardly, knelt in front of me, put her arms around me and pulled me to her. ‘My little girl.’
It was the first time I’d actually felt Mum’s bouffe. It was crispy, almost solid. She didn’t seem to mind it being squashed as she held me close. I really liked it. I wanted her to give me a bottle of warm milk or something.
‘It was so dreadful. So dreadful what happened to Mark. I couldn’t bear to think. You’re doing so . . . Oh, Bridget. I miss Daddy. I miss him so much, so much. But you’ve . . . got to . . . you’ve got to just keep going, haven’t you? That’s half the battle.’
‘No,’ I wailed. ‘It’s just papering over the cracks.’
‘I should have . . . Daddy ALWAYS said . . . he said, “Why can’t you just let her be?” That’s my problem. I can’t let anything be. Everything has to be perfect and it . . . ISN’T!’ she wailed. ‘At least, I don’t mean you, I mean you are, you’re doing so well . . . Oh, where’ve I put my lipstick? And Pawl, you know Pawl – the pastry chef at St Oswald’s? – I thought, you know, he was always bringing me little savoury profiteroles . . . taking me into the kitchen. But he turns out to be one of these . . .’
I started laughing then. ‘Oh, Mum, I could’ve told you Pawl was gay from the moment I saw him.’
‘But there’s no such things as gay, darling. It’s just LAZINESS and—’
Billy appeared on the stairs. ‘Mummy, Chloe’s crying upstairs. Oh.’ He looked at us, puzzled. ‘Why is everybody crying?’
Just as Mum, Chloe and I were having a sort of AA-style sharing event over the kitchen table, while Billy played Xbox and Mabel trotted back and forth handing us Hellvanian Fuckoons and leaves from the garden and patting us kindly, the doorbell rang again. It was Daniel, looking desperate and holding an overnight bag.
‘Jones, my dear girl, I have been released from the rehab sin bin. I got back to the flat and I . . . Actually, I don’t want to be alone, Jones. Could I possibly come into the hellhole for a minute? Just to –’ his voice cracked – ‘be in some sort of human company which I know I’m not going to try and shag?’
‘All right,’ I said, trying to ignore the insult, given the sensitivity of the moment. ‘But you have to PROMISE you won’t try to shag Chloe.’
It was quite an odd evening, as social occasions go, but I think everyone enjoyed it. By the time Daniel had finished with her, Chloe thought she was Charlize Theron, and that Graham wasn’t fit to touch the hem of her skirt, which he isn’t, whoever he is. And Mum, as she cuddled Mabel, eating alternate chocolate buttons with her, slurping red wine and getting completely covered in all of it, was quite coming round to the idea of Kenneth Garside. ‘I mean, he’s terribly charming, is Kenneth. It’s just that he’s VERY highly sexed.’
Daniel, while saying, ‘And what on EARTH is wrong with that, Mrs Jones?’ turned out to be really, really good at the Xbox. But then he ruined the whole thing in the hallway at the end by putting his hand right up Chloe’s skirt. I mean, right up to her knickers.
PART FOUR
SUMMER OF FUN
Saturday 31 August 2013
133lb (still! Miracle), boyfriends 0, children 2 (lovely), friends loads, holidays 3 (counting mini-break), screenwriting jobs 0, possibility of screenwriting jobs (slight), days till school starts 4, major shocks 1.
It has been a brilliant summer. I called up Brian the Agent and asked him to get me off The Leaves in His Hair, and Brian laughed and said, ‘Finally! What took you so long?’ And Brian thinks we should have a go with my new screenplay idea: Time Stand Still Here which is an updating of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, only with a bit more structure, set in a former Lighthouse and Coastguards Cottages holiday complex from the Rural Retreats brochure, in which Mrs Ramsay has an affair with a friend of her son James.
Magda and Jeremy invited us to Paxos for a week, where there were lots of friends with kids; and Woney, who has now had liposuction, was parading around in brightly coloured swimsuits and matching sarongs, swinging her hair extensions and frightening Cosmo. And although Rebecca and the kids were away touring with Jake, there were play dates with Jeremiah and his mum, and Farzia and Bikram, and Cosmata and Thelonius. And we tried to do something with the garden, which consisted of planting three begonias.
We went away to a little cottage by the sea in Devon for three nights with Mum and had a great time. And Mum comes over a lot, just to do baking and things with Billy and Mabel, and she doesn’t criticize my housekeeping or child-rearing any more, and we all really like it. And she has them to stay, and they love it, though it is a bit late in the day because I’ve got no one to shag in the empty house now.
But I try to stand like a great tree and take the stick about Roxster – the Love that Could Not Beeeeeeee! as Tom and Arkis have dramatically dubbed it – and just be happy that, even if no one ever loves me or shags me again ever, at least I know it’s not completely out of the question.
Now, however, am trying to deal with a growing alarm about going back to school: the different homeworks which will probably be beyond my capabilities, the different days for show-and-tell and shin pads. More alarmingly, find myself looking back over all my encounters with Mr Wallaker – the tree, the snow, the Sports Day, the Botox, the concert – all his attempts at kindness to me and I feel shallow and think maybe he wasn’t just trying to make me feel stupid. Maybe he did really care. BUT HE WAS MARRIED, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, even if it was to an over-plastic-surgeried drunk lady. He had kids. What was he doing nearly kissing me, and confusing me? And I gave him an earful, and he saw me with Roxster, and he thinks I’m a condom-buying, syphilis-infected, shallow cougar and now we are going to have to face each other every day at school.
4 p.m. Just went round to Rebecca’s, who is back from the touring, and blurted out the whole confusion about Mr Wallaker, and the school concert and the Heath.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘None of it adds up. He doesn’t add up. Have you got a photo? Any other info?’
I spooled through the phone and found a shot of the concert and Mr Wallaker accompanying Billy.
I watched as Rebecca stared at the photo, frowning slightly. She spooled through some more.
‘This is Capthorpe House, right? Where they have festivals and stuff?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know exactly who this is. He isn’t a schoolteacher.’
I looked at her in consternation. Oh God. He was a weirdo.
‘He plays a bit of jazz piano?’
I nodded.
She went to the cupboard, slightly dislodging the plastic garden vine woven into her hair, and took out a bottle of red wine.
‘He’s called Scott. He was at college with Jake.’
‘He’s a musician?’
‘No. Yes. No.’ She looked at me. ‘That’s a hobby. He went into the SAS.’
The Special Air Service! He was James Bond! It explained everything. The ‘One, sir! Two, sir!’ Billy jumping and rolling from the tree. The gun reflex at Sports Day. Bond.
‘When did he start at the school?’
‘Last year – December?’
‘I bet it’s him. He went off to Sandhurst, then he was abroad a lot, but they kept in touch in a man-friend – i.e. not-very-often – sort of way. Jake ran into him a few months ago. He’d been in Afghanistan. Some bad shit had happened. He said he was back and “keeping it simple”.’ Rebecca suddenly laughed. ‘He thinks teaching at a London private school is “keeping it simple”? Has he seen your Quadrant Living chart?’
‘And he’s married?’
‘Not if it’s him. He’s got two boys, right, at boarding school? He was married, but not any more. She was a nightmare.’
‘Is she really plastic-surgeried . . .?’
‘Exactly. She turned into a major spender: clothes, charity luncheons, all that bollocks, total plastic-surgery queen. When he went abroad she started sleeping with her personal trainer, filed for divorce and tried to fleece him. That place Capthorpe Hall is the family pile. I think she might have tried to get back with him now she’s made herself look like the Bride of Wildenstein. I’ll ask Jake. Next time I see him.’
BACK TO SCHOOL
Friday 13 September 2013
Minutes late for school pickups 0 (but only as trying to impress Mr Wallaker), conversations with Mr Wallaker 0, seconds of eye contact with Mr Wallaker 0.
9.15 p.m. It seems Rebecca was right. And although I have not breathed a word about any of it (except, obviously, to Talitha, Jude and Tom), the news is out that Mr Wallaker is not married. Which is awful because now there is a feeding frenzy over Mr Wallaker. Everyone is trying to fix Mr Wallaker up with their single friend. Farzia did suggest trying to shove me at him, but it is pointless. Even though my heart leaps now, when I see him on the steps, Mr Wallaker does not come up and tease me any more. Mr Wallaker does not run into us on the Heath. The magic is gone. And it is all my own fault.
Mr Wallaker is in charge of more and more things at the school: sport, chess, music, ‘Pastoral Care’. He is like Russell Crowe in Gladiator – when he was a slave and organized the other slaves into an army and defeated all the Greeks or Romans. It’s like putting ants down in any situation: ants will just do what ants do. If you put someone really cool and capable down anywhere they will just be cool and capable. And be set up with every unattached woman in sight except me.
Friday 27 September 2013
9.45 p.m. ‘It’s you he loves,’ said Tom, on his fourth mojito in the York & Albany.
‘Look, can we just shut up about Mr Effing Wallaker?’ I muttered. ‘I’ve accepted my life now. It’s good. It’s the three of us. We’re not broke. I’m not lonely any more. I’m a great tree.’
‘And The Leaves in His Hair is going to be made!’ encouraged Jude.
‘What’s left of it,’ I said darkly.
‘But at least you’ll get to go to the premiere, baby,’ said Tom. ‘You might meet someone there.’
‘If I’m invited.’
‘If he’s not calling you, if he’s not texting you, he’s just not that into you,’ said Jude unhelpfully.
‘But Mr Wallaker has never called her or texted her,’ said Tom squiffily. ‘Who are we talking about here?’
‘Can we please stop talking about Mr Wallaker? I don’t even like him and he doesn’t like me.’
‘Well, you did rather give him an earful, darling,’ said Talitha.
‘But there was so much depth to what was building,’ said Tom.
‘When he’s hot, he’s hot; when he’s not, he’s not,’ said Jude.
‘Why don’t you get Rebecca to fix you up?’ said Tom.
10 p.m. Just went round to Rebecca’s. She shook her head. ‘It never works, that sort of thing. They sense it a mile off, by radar. Just let it unfold.’
THE MIGHTY JUNGLE
Friday 18 October 2013
Number of times listened to ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ 45 (continuing).
9.15 p.m. The choir auditions have come round again. Billy is lying in bed singing ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, then going, ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeeoheeeeoheeeeoh’ in a high-pitched voice while Mabel yells, ‘Shut up, Billy, shut uuuuuuuuuuurp.’
This year we have been practising hitting actual notes. Was in fact quite carried away with self this evening, teaching them Doh Ray Me, parroting Maria in The Sound of Music (I actually do know the whole of The Sound of Music off by heart).
‘Mummy?’ said Billy.
‘Yes?’
‘Can you stop, please?’
Monday 21 October 2013
Times practised ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ before school 24, hours spent worrying whether Billy will get into choir 7, times changed outfit to pick up Billy from choir auditions 5, minutes early for pickup 7 (good, apart from reasons for same: i.e. impressing hopeless love prospect).
3.30 p.m. Just about to pick up Billy and get choir audition results. Beside self with nerves.
6 p.m. Freakishly was already waiting inside the school gates before Billy came out. I saw Mr Wallaker emerge onto the steps and glance round, but he ignored me. Was sunk into gloom, realizing that now he was officially single, he feared that all single women, including me, were going to nibble at him like piranhas.
‘Mummy!’ Billy emerged, grinning the fantastic ear-to-ear grin, as though his face was going to burst. ‘I got in! I got in! I got in the choir!’
Delirious with joy I encircled him in my arms at which he grunted, ‘Ge’ awfff!’ like an adolescent and glanced nervously at his friends.
‘Let’s go and celebrate!’ I said. ‘I’m so proud of you! Let’s go to . . . to McDonald’s!’
‘Well done, Billy.’ It was Mr Wallaker. ‘You kept trying and you made it. Good effort.’
‘Um!’ I said, thinking maybe this was the moment when I could apologize and explain, but he just walked off, leaving me with only his pert bum to look at.
I just ate two Big Macs with fries, a double chocolate shake and a sugar doughnut.
When he’s hot, he’s hot; when he’s not, he’s not. But at least there is always food.
PARENTS’ EVENING
Tuesday 5 November 2013
9 p.m. Hmmm. Maybe he isn’t not hot. I mean, not completely not hot. Arrived at parents’ evening, admittedly a tad late, to find most of the parents preparing to leave and Billy’s form teacher, Mr Pitlochry-Howard, looking at his watch.
Mr Wallaker strode in with an armful of reports. ‘Ah, Mrs Darcy,’ he said. ‘Decided to come along after all?’
‘I have been. At a meeting,’ I said hoity-toitily (even though, unaccountably, as yet, no one has asked for a meeting about Time Stand Still Here, my updating of To the Lighthouse) and settled myself with an ingratiating smile in front of Mr Pitlochry-Howard.
‘How IS Billy?’ said Mr Pitlochry-Howard kindly. Always feel uncomfortable when people say this. Sometimes it’s nice if you think that they really care, but I paranoically imagined he meant there was something wrong with Billy.
‘He’s fine,’ I said, bristling. ‘How is he, you know, at school?’
‘He seems very happy.’
‘Is he all right with the other boys?’ I said anxiously.
‘Yes, yes, popular with the boys, very cheerful. Gets a bit giggly in the class sometimes.’
‘Right, right,’ I said, suddenly remembering Mum getting a letter from my headmistress suggesting that I had some sort of pathological giggling problem. Fortunately Dad went in and gave the teacher an earful, but maybe it was a genetic disorder.
‘I don’t think we need to worry too much about giggling,’ said Mr Wallaker. ‘What was the issue you had with the English?’
‘Well, the spellings . . .’ Mr Pitlochry-Howard began.
‘Still?’ said Mr Wallaker.
‘Ah, well, you see,’ I said, springing to Billy’s defence. ‘He’s only little. And also – as a writer I believe language is a constantly evolving, fluctuating thing, and actually communicating what you want to say is more important than spelling and punctuating it.’ I paused for a moment, remembering Imogen at Greenlight accusing me of just putting strange dots and marks in here and there where I thought they looked nice.
‘I mean, look at “realize”,’ I went on. ‘It used to be spelt with a z and now it’s Americanized – that’s with an “s” by the way. And I notice you’re spelling it on the tests with an “s” because computers do now!’ I finished triumphantly.
‘Yes, marvelous, with a single “l”,’ said Mr Wallaker. ‘But, at this present moment in time, Billy needs to pass his spelling tests or he’ll feel like a berk. So could you perhaps practise when you two are running up the hill in the mornings just after the bell has rung?’
‘OK,’ I said, looking at him under lowered brows. ‘How is his actual writing? I mean, creatively?’
‘Well,’ said Mr Pitlochry-Howard, rustling through his papers. ‘Ah, yes. We asked them to write about something strange.’
‘Let me see,’ said Mr Wallaker, putting on his glasses. Oh God. It would be so great if we could both put on our reading glasses on a date without feeling embarrassed.
‘Something strange, you say?’ He cleared his throat.
I sank into the chair, dismayed. Was this how my children saw me?
Mr Pitlochry-Howard was staring down at his papers, red-faced.
‘Well!’ said Mr Wallaker. ‘As you say, it communicates what it’s trying to communicate very well. A very vivid picture of . . . something strange.’
I met his gaze levelly. It was all right for him, wasn’t it? He was trained in giving orders and had packed his boys off to boarding school and could use the holidays to casually perfect their incredible music and sporting skills while adjusting their spelling of ‘inauspicious’.
‘How about the rest of it?’ he said.
‘No. He’s – his marks are very good apart from the spelling. Homework’s still pretty disorganized.’
‘Let’s have a look,’ said Mr Wallaker, rifling through the science papers, then picking up the planets one.
‘“Write five sentences, each including a fact about Uranus.”’
He paused. Suddenly could feel myself wanting to giggle.
‘He only did one sentence. Was there a problem with the question?’
‘I think the problem was it seemed rather a lot of facts to come up with, about such a featureless galactical area,’ I said, trying to control myself.
‘Oh, really? You find Uranus featureless?’ I distinctly saw Mr Wallaker suppress a giggle.
‘Yes,’ I managed to say. ‘Had it been Mars, the famed Red Planet, with recent robot landings, or even Saturn with its many rings—’
‘Or Mars with its twin orbs,’ said Mr Wallaker, glancing, I swear, at my tits before staring intently down at his papers.
‘Exactly,’ I got out in a strangled voice.
‘But, Mrs Darcy,’ burst out Mr Pitlochry-Howard, with an air of injured pride, ‘I personally am more fascinated by Uranus than—’
‘Thank you!’ I couldn’t help myself saying, then just totally gave in to helpless laughter.
‘Mr Pitlochry-Howard,’ said Mr Wallaker, pulling himself together, ‘I think we have admirably made our point. And,’ he murmured in an undertone, ‘I can quite see whence the giggling originates. Are there any more issues of concern with Billy’s work?’
‘No, no, grades are very good, gets on with the other boys, very jolly, great little chap.’
‘Well, it’s all down to you, Mr Pitlochry-Howard,’ I said creepily. ‘All that teaching! Thank you so much.’
Then, not daring to look at Mr Wallaker, I got up and glided out of the hall.
However, once outside I sat in the car thinking I needed to go back in and ask Mr Pitlochry-Howard more about the homework. Or maybe, if Mr Pitlochry-Howard should, perchance, be busy, Mr Wallaker.
Back in the hall Mr Pitlochry-Howard and Mr Wallaker were talking to Nicolette and her handsome husband, who had his hand supportively on Nicolette’s back.
You’re not supposed to listen to the other parents’ consultations but Nicolette was projecting so powerfully it was impossible not to.
‘I just wonder if Atticus might be a little overextended,’ Mr Pitlochry-Howard was mumbling. ‘He seems to have so many after-school clubs and play dates. He’s a little anxious sometimes. He becomes despairing if he doesn’t feel he is on top.’
‘Where is he in the class?’ said Nicolette. ‘How far is he from the top?’
She peered over at the chart, which Mr Pitlochry-Howard put his arm across. She flicked her hair crossly. ‘Why don’t we know their relative performance levels? What are the class positions?’
‘We don’t do class positions, Mrs Martinez,’ said Mr Pitlochry-Howard.
‘Why not?’ she said, with the sort of apparently pleasant, casual inquisitiveness which conceals a swordsman poised behind the arras.
‘It’s really about doing their personal best,’ said Mr Pitlochry-Howard.
‘Let me explain something,’ said Nicolette. ‘I used to be CEO of a large chain of health and fitness clubs, which expanded throughout the UK and into North America. Now I am CEO of a family. My children are the most important, complex and thrilling product I have ever developed. I need to be able to assess their progress, relative to their peers, in order to adjust their development.’
Mr Wallaker was watching her in silence.
‘Healthy competition has its place but when an obsession with relative position replaces a pleasure in the actual subject . . .’ Mr Pitlochry-Howard began nervously.
‘And you feel that extra-curricular activities and play dates are stressing him out?’ said Nicolette.
Her husband put his hand on her arm: ‘Darling . . .’
‘These boys need to be rounded. They need their flutes. They need their fencing. Furthermore,’ she continued, ‘I do not see social engagements as “play dates”. They are team-building exercises.’
‘THEY ARE CHILDREN!’ Mr Wallaker roared. ‘They are not corporate products! What they need to acquire is not a constant massaging of the ego, but confidence, fun, affection, love, a sense of self-worth. They need to understand, now, that there will always – always – be someone greater and lesser than themselves, and that their self-worth lies in their contentment with who they are, what they are doing and their increasing competence in doing it.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Nicolette. ‘So there’s no point trying? I see. Then, well, maybe we should be looking at Westminster.’
‘We should be looking at who they will become as adults,’ Mr Wallaker went on. ‘It’s a harsh world out there. The barometer of success in later life is not that they always win, but how they deal with failure. An ability to pick themselves up when they fall, retaining their optimism and sense of self, is a far greater predictor of future success than class position in Year 3.’
Blimey. Had Mr Wallaker suddenly been reading Buddha’s Little Instruction Book?
‘It’s not a harsh world if you know how to win,’ purred Nicolette. ‘What is Atticus form position, please?’
‘We don’t give form positions,’ said Mr Wallaker, getting to his feet. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Yes, his French,’ said Nicolette, undaunted. And then they all sat down again.
10 p.m. Perhaps Mr Wallaker is right about there being always someone ‘greater and lesser than yourself’ at things. Was just walking back to car when posh, exhausted mother trying to wrangle three overdressed children suddenly burst out, ‘Clemency! You fucking, bleeding little c***!’
FIFTY SHADES OF OLD
Friday 22 November 2013
137lb (helpless slide back towards obesity), calories 3384, Diet Cokes 7, Red Bulls 3, ham-and-cheese paninis 2, exercise 0, months since did roots 2, weeks since waxed legs 5, weeks since painted toenails 6, number of months since any sexual experience whatsoever 5 (Born-Again Virgin again).
Am letting self go to seed – un-waxed, un-plucked, un-exercised, un-exfoliated, un-mani-pedicured, un-meditated, roots un-touched-up, hair un-blow-dried, undressed (never, worst luck) – and stuffing face to make up for it. Something has to be done.
Saturday 23 November 2013
3 p.m. Just came out of the hairdresser’s where my roots were restored to their youthful glory. Immediately came face to face with a poster at the bus stop of Sharon Osbourne and her daughter Kelly: Sharon Osbourne with auburn hair and Kelly with grey hair.
So confused. Is looking old the new bohemian floaty scarf now? Am I going to have to go back, have the grey roots restored and ask the Botox man to add some wrinkles?
Was just pondering this question when a voice said, ‘Hello.’
‘Mr Wallaker!’ I said, fluffing up my new hair coquettishly.
‘Hello!’ He was wearing a warm, sexy jacket and scarf, looking down at me in the old way, cool, with the slightly amused twitch in the corner of his mouth.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I just want to say, I’m sorry I said all that at the school concert and was so lippy with you all those times when you were just being kind. But I thought you were married. And the thing is, I know everything. I mean, not everything. But I know about you being in the SAS and—’
His expression changed. ‘What did you say?’
‘Jake and Rebecca live across the road and . . .’
He was looking away from me, down the street, the muscle in his jaw working.
‘It’s all right. I haven’t told anybody. And the thing is, you see, I know what it’s like when something really bad happens.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said abruptly.
‘I know, you think I’m an awful mother, and spend the whole time in the hairdresser’s and buying condoms, but I’m actually not like that. Those gonorrhoea leaflets – Mabel had just picked them up at the doctor’s. I don’t have gonorrhoea or syphilis . . .’
‘Am I interrupting?’
A stunning girl was emerging from Starbucks, holding two coffees.
‘Hi.’ She handed him one of the coffees and smiled at me.
‘This is Miranda,’ said Mr Wallaker stiffly.
Miranda was beautiful and young, with long, shiny black hair, topped with a trendy woollen cap. She had long thin legs in jeans and . . . and studded ankle boots.
‘Miranda, this is Mrs Darcy, one of our school mothers.’
‘Bridget!’ said a voice. The hairdresser who had just done my roots was hurrying up the street. ‘You left your wallet in the salon. How’s the colour? No more shades of grey for you for Christmas!’
‘It is very nice, thank you. Happy Christmas,’ I said like a traumatized automaton granny. ‘Happy Christmas, Mr Wallaker. Happy Christmas, Miranda,’ I said, although it was not Christmas.
They looked at me oddly as I walked shakily away.
9.15 p.m. The children are asleep and I am very old and lonely. No one will ever fancy me again ever, ever, ever. Mr Wallaker is at this moment shagging Miranda. Everybody’s life is perfect except mine.
THE SOUND OF SHELLS CRACKING
Monday 25 November 2013
136lb, number of pounds heavier than Miranda 46.
9.15 a.m. Right. I am used to this now. I know what to do. We do not wallow. We do not descend into feelings of being crap with men. We do not think everyone else’s life is perfect except ours, except bloody Miranda’s. We concentrate on our inner great tree, and we go to yoga.
1 p.m. Blimey. Started off in yoga, but realized had drunk too much Diet Coke again. Suffice it to say, it didn’t go very well during Pigeon Pose.
Went instead into the meditation class next door, which you could argue was a bit of a waste of money because it had cost fifteen quid and all we did was sit cross-legged trying to keep our minds blank. Found self looking round the room, thinking about Mr Wallaker and Miranda, then nearly farted in shock.
I didn’t recognize him at first but there, sitting in loose-fitting grey clothes on a purple mat, eyes closed, palms raised on his knees, was none other than George from Greenlight. At least, I was pretty sure it was him, but it was hard to tell. Then I saw the big glasses and iPhone next to the purple mat and I knew it was definitely George.
On the way out, I wasn’t sure whether to say hello or not, but then I thought we had been communing on some sort of level, if subliminal, for the last hour, so I said, ‘George?’
He put the glasses on and looked at me, suspiciously, as though I was going to force a spec script on him right there.
‘It’s me!’ I said. ‘Remember? The Leaves in His Hair?’
‘What? Oh, right. Hey.’
‘I didn’t know you were into meditation.’
‘Yeah. I’m done with the movie business. It’s all studio movies. No respect for art. Meaningless. Empty. Nest of vipers. I was falling apart. Just about to . . . Hang on.’ George checked his iPhone. ‘Sorry. Just about to get on a plane. I’m going to an ashram for three months in Lahore. Great to catch up.’
‘Excuse me,’ I ventured.
He turned, looking impatient.
‘Are you sure the ashram isn’t in Le Touquet?’
He laughed then, probably only just remembering who I was, and we had a rather alarming hug, and he said, ‘Namaste,’ in a deep movie-producer voice with an ironic expression, then rushed off again, still checking his iPhone. And I realized, in spite of everything, I was actually quite fond of George from Greenlight.
Tuesday 26 November 2013
135lb, number of pounds heavier than Miranda 45 (better), calories 4826, ham-and-cheese paninis 2, pizzas 1.5, tubs of Häagen-Dazs frozen yogurt 2, alcohol units 6 (very bad behaviour).
9 a.m. Just dropped off kids. Feel fat. Maybe will go and get ham-and-cheese panini.
10.30 a.m. Suddenly realized as was standing in the queue that Perfect Nicolette was there, waiting for her hot beverage. She was wearing a white faux-fur jacket and sunglasses and carrying an enormous handbag. She looked like Kate Moss arriving at a black-tie event, only it was nine in the morning. Was tempted to bolt, but had been waiting ages, so, when Nicolette eventually turned and spotted me, I said brightly, ‘Hello!’
Instead of the frosty greeting I was expecting, Nicolette just stared at me, holding a paper cup in one hand.
‘I’ve got a new bag. It’s Hermès,’ she said, holding up the handbag. Then her shoulders started to shake.
‘SkinnyVentiDecafCappkeepthechange,’ I rattled off, shoving a fiver at the barista and thinking, ‘If Nicolette’s having a breakdown now, then that’s it. It’s a cut-and-dried case. Everybody, left, right and centre, is a mess of cracked shells.’
‘Come downstairs,’ I said to Nicolette, patting her shoulder awkwardly. Fortunately there was no one else in the basement.
‘I’ve got a new bag,’ she said. ‘And this is the receipt.’
I stared blankly at the receipt. ‘My husband bought it for me, from Frankfurt airport.’
‘Well, that’s nice. It’s beautiful,’ I lied. The handbag was mad. It had no rhyme or reason, buckles and straps and loops bursting out everywhere like lunatics.
‘Look at the receipt,’ she said, pointing at it. ‘It’s for two handbags.’
I blinked at the receipt. It did seem to be for two handbags. But so?
‘It’s just a mistake,’ I said. ‘Ring them and get the money back.’
She shook her head. ‘I know who she is. I called her. It’s been going on for eight months. He bought her the identical bag.’ Her face crumpled. ‘It was a present. And he bought the same one for her.’
Got home and checked my emails:
Sender:
Nicolette Martinez
Subject:
The school fucking concert
Just to let you know I don’t give a flying fuck who brings the mince pies or mulled wine this year and you can all turn up whenever the FUCK you like because I don’t FUCKING WELL GIVE A FUCK.
Nicorette
I need it.
Think will give Nicolette a ring.
11 p.m. Just had brilliant night at our place with Nicolette, with the three boys running riot on Roblox and Mabel watching SpongeBob SquarePants while we had some wine, pizza, cheese, Diet Coke, Red Bull, Cadbury’s chocolate buttons, Rolos and Häagen-Dazs, and Nicolette looked at OkCupid, shouting, ‘Bastards! Fuckwittage!’
In the middle Tom turned up, slightly plastered, going on about a new survey: ‘It proves that the quality of someone’s relationships is the biggest indicator of their long-term emotional health – not so much the “significant other” relationship, as the measure of happiness is not your husband or boyfriend but the quality of the other relationships you have around you. Anyway, just thought I’d tell you. I’ve got to go and meet Arkis now.’
Nicolette is now asleep in my bed and four kids are all squeezed in the bunk beds.
You see? Don’t need men anyway.
A HERO WILL RISE
Friday 29 November 2013
This is what happened. Billy had a football match at another school, East Finchley, a few miles away. We’d been told to park in the street to pick them up, as cars weren’t allowed in the grounds. The school was a tall, red-brick building, with a small concrete yard in front of the gates, and to the left, a sunken sports court, four feet down, surrounded by a heavy chain-link fence.
The boys were running round the sports court kicking balls, the mothers chatting round the East Finchley steps. Suddenly, a black BMW roared right up to the school, the driver, an idiotically flashy-looking father, talking on his mobile.
Mr Wallaker strode to the car. ‘Excuse me.’
The father ignored him, continuing to talk on his phone, engine still running. Mr Wallaker rapped on the window. ‘Cars are not allowed in the school grounds. Park in the street, please.’
The window slid open. ‘Time is money for some of us, my friend.’
‘It’s a safety issue.’
‘Phaw. Safety. I’ll be two minutes.’
Mr Wallaker gave him the stare. ‘Move. The car.’
Still holding the phone to his ear, the father angrily slammed the BMW into gear, reversing without looking, turned the wheel with a screech and backed towards the sports court, straight into the heavy steel pole supporting the fence.
As everyone turned to stare, the father, red-faced, jammed his foot on the accelerator, forgetting to take the car out of reverse, and rammed the post again. There was a sickening crack and the post started to topple.
‘Boys!’ yelled Mr Wallaker. ‘Get away from the fence! Scramble!’
It all seemed to be in slow motion. As the boys scattered and ran, the heavy metal post tottered, then fell into the sports court, pulling the fence with it and landing with a terrifying bounce and crash. At the same time the car slid backwards, the front wheels still on the concrete yard, the rear wheels half over the pit of the sports court below.
Everyone froze, stunned, except Mr Wallaker, who leaped down into the pit, yelling, ‘Call 999! Weight the front of the car! Boys! Line up at the other end.’
Unbelievably, the BMW dad was starting to open his door.
‘You! Stay still!’ yelled Mr Wallaker, but the car was already sliding further backwards, the wheels now completely hanging over the drop.
I scanned the boys at the other end of the court. Billy! Where was Billy?
‘Take Mabel!’ I said to Nicolette, and ran to the side of the sports court.
Mr Wallaker was below me in the pit, calm, eyes flicking over the scene. I forced myself to look.
The heavy metal post was now wedged at a diagonal, one end against the wall of the pit and the other on the ground. The fence lay at an angle, buckled, hanging from the post like a ridge tent. Cowering in the small gap beneath the post, caged by the fallen fence, were Billy, Bikram and Jeremiah, their little faces staring, terrified, at Mr Wallaker. The wall was behind them, the fence trapping them in front and at the sides, the rear of the big car hanging above them.
I let out a gasp and jumped down into the pit.
‘It’ll be all right,’ Mr Wallaker said quietly. ‘I’ve got this.’
He crouched down. ‘OK, Superheroes, this is your big break. Wriggle back to the wall and curl up. Brace positions.’
Looking more excited than scared now, the boys wriggled themselves back and curled up, arms over their little heads.
‘Good work, Troopers,’ Mr Wallaker said, and started to lift the heavy fence from the ground. ‘Now . . .’
Suddenly, with a sickening screech of metal against concrete, the BMW slid further backwards, dislodging bits of debris, the back end swinging precariously in mid-air.
There were screams from the mothers above and the wail of sirens.
‘Stay against the wall, boys!’ said Mr Wallaker, unfazed. ‘This is going to be good!’
He stooped under the car, stepping carefully onto the fallen fence. He raised his arms and thrust the whole of his strength against the chassis. I could see the muscles straining in his forearms, in his neck, beneath his shirt.
‘WEIGHT THE FRONT OF THE CAR!’ he yelled up to the yard, sweat beading his forehead. ‘LADIES! ELBOWS ON THE BONNET!’
I glanced up to see teachers and mothers leaping out of their shock, throwing themselves like startled chickens on the bonnet. Slowly, as Mr Wallaker strained upwards, the rear of the car lifted.
‘OK, boys,’ he said, still pushing upwards. ‘Stay close to the wall. Crawl to your right, away from the car. Then get yourselves out from under that fence.’
I rushed to the edge of the fallen chain-fence, more parents and teachers joining me now. Between us we struggled to lift the buckled metal, the three boys wriggling towards the edge, Billy the last one in line.
Firemen were jumping down, lifting the fence, pulling Bikram out – the metal ripping his shirt – then Jeremiah. Billy was still in there. As Jeremiah wriggled free, I reached forward and put my arms under Billy’s, feeling as though I had the strength of ten men, and pulled, sobbing with relief as Billy came free and the firemen pulled us out of the pit.
‘That’s the last one! Come on!’ yelled Mr Wallaker, still shaking under the weight of the car. The firemen jumped under to support him, stepping on the fence, their weight crushing it down into the space where, seconds before, the three boys had been cowering.
‘Where’s Mabel?’ yelled Billy dramatically. ‘We have to save her!’
The three boys charged off through the crowd in the yard, with the air of supermen with flapping capes. I followed, to find Mabel standing calmly beside a hyperventilating Nicolette.
Billy threw his arms round Mabel, yelling, ‘I’ve saved her! I’ve saved my sister! Are you all right, sister?’
‘Yeth,’ she said solemnly. ‘But Mr Wallaker’th bossy.’
Incredibly, in the midst of the pandemonium, the BMW dad again opened the car door, and this time he actually climbed out, brushing huffily at his overcoat, at which the whole vehicle started sliding backwards.
‘IT’S COMING DOWN!’ Mr Wallaker yelled from below. ‘GET OUT, GUYS!’
We all rushed forward to see Mr Wallaker and the firemen jumping clear as the BMW crashed down onto the steel pole, then bounced, rolled and smashed on its side, sleek metal cracking, windows shattering, broken glass and debris all over the cream leather seats.
‘My Bima!’ shouted the dad.
‘Time is money, dickhead,’ Mr Wallaker retorted, grinning delightedly.
As the paramedics tried to look him over, Billy was explaining, ‘We couldn’t move, you see, Mummy. We daren’t run because that post was wobbling right above us. But then we were Superheroes because . . .’
Meanwhile, chaos was breaking out around us, parents running crazily round in circles, hair extensions flying, enormous handbags lying forgotten on the ground.
Mr Wallaker jumped onto the steps.
‘Quiet!’ he shouted. ‘Everyone stand still! Now, boys. In a second you’ll be lining up to be checked and counted. But first, listen up. You just had a real adventure. No one got hurt. You were brave, you were calm, and three of you – Bikram, Jeremiah and Billy – were cut-and-dried Superheroes. Tonight you’re to go home and celebrate, because you’ve proved that when scary stuff happens – which it will – you know how to be brave and calm.’
Cheers went up from the boys and parents. ‘Oh my God,’ said Farzia. ‘Take me now’ – rather echoing my own sentiments. As Mr Wallaker passed me, he shot me a smug little look, endearingly Billy-like.
‘All in a day’s work?’ I said.
‘Seen worse,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and at least your hair didn’t blow up.’
After the counting, Bikram, Billy and Jeremiah were mobbed by the other boys. The three of them had to go to hospital to be checked out. When they climbed into the ambulances, followed by their traumatized mothers, it was with the air of a newly famous boy band from Britain’s Got Talent.
Mabel fell asleep in the ambulance and slept through the checkups. The boys were fine, apart from a few scratches. Bikram’s and Jeremiah’s fathers turned up at the hospital. A few minutes later Mr Wallaker appeared, grinning, with bags of McDonald’s and went over every detail of what had happened with the boys, answering all their questions and explaining exactly how and why they’d been Action Heroes.
As Jeremiah and Bikram left with their parents, Mr Wallaker held out my car keys.
‘You OK?’ He took one look at my face and said, ‘I’ll drive you home.’
‘No! I’m absolutely fine!’ I lied.
‘Listen,’ he said with his slight smile. ‘It doesn’t make you less of a top professional feminist if you let somebody help you.’
Back home, as I settled the children on the sofa, Mr Wallaker said quietly, ‘What do you need?’
‘Their cuddly toys? They’re upstairs in the bunk beds.’
‘Puffle Two?’
‘Yes. And One and Three, Mario, Horsio and Saliva.’
‘Saliva?’
‘Her dolly.’
As he came back with the toys, I was trying to turn on the TV, staring at the remotes. ‘Shall I have a go?’
SpongeBob sprang into life, and he led me behind the sofa.
I started sobbing then, silently.
‘Shhh. Shhh,’ he whispered, putting his strong arms around me. ‘No one was hurt, I knew it was going to be fine.’
I leaned against him, sniffing and snuffling.
‘You’re doing all right, Bridget,’ he said softly. ‘You’re a good mum and dad, better than some who have a staff of eight and a flat in Monte Carlo. Even if you have put snot on my shirt.’
And it felt like the aeroplane door opening, when you arrive on holiday, with a rush of warm air. It felt like sitting down at the end of the day.
Then Mabel yelled, ‘Mummee! SpongeBob’th finished!’ and simultaneously the doorbell rang.
It was Rebecca. ‘We just heard about the school thing,’ she said, clattering down the stairs, a string of tiny LED Christmas lights woven into her hair. ‘What happened? Oh!’ she said, seeing Mr Wallaker. ‘Hello, Scott.’
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. Headgear unexpectedly understated . . . but still.’
Finn, Oleander and Jake came over and the house was filled with noise and chocolate and Hellvanians and Xbox, and everyone running about. I kept trying to talk to Billy, and help him process what had happened, but he just said, ‘Mummeee! I’m a Superhero! OK?’
I watched Mr Wallaker talking to Jake, both of them tall, handsome, old friends, fathers. Rebecca looked at Mr Wallaker and raised her eyebrows at me, but then his phone rang, and I could just tell he was talking to Miranda.
‘I have to go,’ he said abruptly, clicking it off. ‘You guys will look after them tonight, right, Jake?’
Heart sinking, I followed him up to the doorstep and started to gabble, ‘I’m so grateful. It’s you who is the Superhero. I mean are. I mean is.’
‘Are,’ he said. ‘And it was my pleasure.’
He walked down the steps then turned, added softly ‘. . . Superheroine’, and strode off towards the main road, the taxis, and a girl who looks like she’s out of a magazine. I watched him go, sadly, thinking, ‘Superheroine? I’d still like someone to shag.’
’TIS THE SEASON
Monday 2 December 2013
Everything is all right. Took Billy to the child psychologist who said he seemed to have ‘healthily assimilated it as a learning experience’. When I tried to take him for a second time, Billy said, ‘Mummee! It’s you who needs to go.’
Billy, Bikram and Jeremiah are enjoying a period of what can only be described as celebrity at the school and have been signing autographs. Their school celebrity, however, is as nothing beside that of Mr Wallaker.
And Mr Wallaker is friendly to me now, and I to him. But that’s as far as it seems to go.
Tuesday 3 December 2013
3.30 p.m. Mabel just came out of school singing:
‘Deck de halls wid boughs of holly,
Falalalala la la la la.
’Tis de season to be jolly . . .’
It is the season to be jolly. Am going to be jolly this year. And grateful.
Wednesday 4 December 2013
4.30 p.m. Oh. Mabel has now changed the words to:
‘’Tis de season to hate Billy.’
Thursday 5 December 2013
10 a.m. Thelonius’s mother stopped me at the Infants Branch drop-off this morning.
‘Bridget,’ she said, ‘could you ask your daughter to stop upsetting Thelonius?’
‘Why? What?’ I said, confused.
It turns out Mabel is going round the playground singing:
‘Deck de halls wid boughs of begonias,
Falalalala la la la la.
’Tis de season to hate Thelonius . . .’
2 p.m. ‘That’ll teach you to plant such an unimaginative flower,’ said Rebecca. ‘How’s Scott? I mean, Mr Wallaker.’
‘He’s nice,’ I said. ‘He’s friendly, but, you know, just friendly . . .’
‘Well, are you “just friendly” to him? Does he KNOW?’
‘He’s with Miranda.’
‘A man like that has his needs. It doesn’t mean he’s going to be with her for ever.’
I shook my head. ‘He’s not interested. I think he likes me as a person, now. But that’s as far as it goes.’
It is sad. But mostly I am happy. It only takes a really bad thing to nearly happen to make you appreciate what you have.
2.05 p.m. Bloody Miranda.
2.10 p.m. Hate Miranda. ‘Oh, oh, look at me, I’m all young and tall and thin and perfect.’ She’s probably also going out with Roxster. Humph.
THE CAROL CONCERT
Wednesday 11 December 2013
The carol concert was upon us again, and Billy and Mabel both had sleepovers so there was wild excitement combined with the utter hysteria of trying to pack two overnight backpacks, get Mabel and me looking human and festive enough to go to a school carol concert, and get there before it had actually ended.
Was trying to put on my best front, as no doubt Miranda would be in the church cheering on her man. Mabel was wearing a furry jacket and a sticky-out red skirt which I’d got in the ILoveGorgeous sale, and I was wearing a new white coat (inspired by Nicolette, who is currently in the Maldives, where her sexually incontinent husband is begging her forgiveness while she tortures him in a luxury hut on the end of a long wooden walkway, suspended over the sea on stilts, sharks circling below). In the absence of any possibility of blowjobs, I had gone for a blow-dry – though the Disney Princess and Mario backpacks didn’t exactly add to the look. Plus Miranda would undoubtedly be wearing an effortlessly sexy yet understated outfit so edgily on-trend that even Mabel would not understand it.
As we came out of the tube station, the ‘village’ looked utterly magical, delicate lights casting shadows in the trees. The shops were all lit up, and a brass band was playing ‘Good King Wenceslas’. And the old-fashioned butcher had turkeys hanging up in the window. And we were early.
Out of a moment’s believing I actually was Good King Wenceslas, I rushed into the butcher and bought four Cumberland sausages – in case a poor man suddenly came in sight – adding a sausage bag to the two lurid backpacks. Then Mabel wanted to get a hot chocolate, which seemed like the perfect idea, but then suddenly it was 5.45, which was the time we were meant to be seated by, so we had to run towards the church, and Mabel tripped and her hot chocolate went all over my coat. She burst into tears. ‘Your coat, Mummy, your new coat.’
‘It doesn’t matter, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s just a coat. Here, have my hot chocolate,’ meanwhile thinking, ‘Oh, fuck, the one time I manage to get it together, I fuck it up again.’
But the church square was so beautiful, lined with Georgian houses with Christmas trees in the windows and Christmas wreaths on the doors. The church windows were glowing orange, organ music was playing and the fir tree outside was decorated with Christmas lights.
And there were some seats left inside, quite near the front. There was no sign of Miranda. Heart gave a great leap as Mr Wallaker appeared, looking cheerful yet masterful in a blue shirt and dark jacket.
‘Look, dere’s Billy,’ said Mabel as the choir and musicians filed into the pews. We had been strictly instructed by Billy not to wave, but Mabel waved, and then I couldn’t help it. Mr Wallaker glanced at Billy, who rolled his eyes and giggled.
Then everyone settled and the vicar walked down the aisle and said the blessing. Billy kept looking over at us and grinning. He was so proud of himself being in the choir. Then it was time for the first carol and everyone got to their feet. Spartacus, as usual, was singing the solo, and as that pure, perfect little voice rang out through the church . . .
‘Once in royal David’s city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby
In a manger for His bed.’
. . . I realized I was going to cry.
The organ swelled into action and the congregation started to sing the second verse.
‘He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all.
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall.’
And all the Christmases before came flooding back: the Christmases when I was little, standing between Mum and Dad in Grafton Underwood village church on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa Claus; the Christmases when I was a teenager, Dad and I suppressing giggles as Mum and Una warbled overly loudly in ridiculous sopranos; the Christmases in my thirties, when I was single and so sad, because I thought I’d never have a baby of my own to lay in a manger, or more precisely a Bugaboo stroller; last winter in the snow when I was tweeting Roxster, who was probably at this moment dancing to ‘garage house’ music with someone called Natalie. Or Miranda. Or Saffron. Dad’s last Christmas before he died, when he staggered out of hospital to go to Midnight Mass in Grafton Underwood; the first Christmas when Mark and I went to church, holding Billy in a little Santa Claus outfit; the Christmas when Billy had his first Nativity Play at nursery school, which was the first Christmas after Mark’s brutal, horrible death, when I couldn’t believe that Christmas would be so cruel as to actually try to happen.
‘Don’t cry, Mummy, pleathe don’t cry.’ Mabel was gripping my hand tightly. Billy was looking over. I wiped the tears away with my fist, raised my head to join in:
‘And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.’
. . . and saw that Mr Wallaker was looking straight at me. The congregation carried on singing:
‘And our eyes at last shall see Him.’
. . . but Mr Wallaker had stopped singing and was just looking at me. And I looked back, with my face covered in mascara and my coat covered in hot chocolate. Then Mr Wallaker smiled, the slightest, kindest smile, the one smile that understood, over the heads of all those boys he’d taught to sing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. And I knew that I loved Mr Wallaker.
As we came out of the church, it had begun to snow, thick flakes, swirling down, settling on the festive coats, and on the Christmas tree. There was a brazier lit in the churchyard and the senior boys were handing out mulled wine, roast chestnuts and hot chocolate.
‘May I pour some more of this down your coat?’
I turned and there he was, holding a tray of two hot chocolates and two mulled wines.
‘This is for you, Mabel,’ he said, putting down the tray and crouching to hold out a hot chocolate.
She shook her head. ‘I spilt it before, on Mummy’s coat, you see.’
‘Now, Mabel,’ he said solemnly, ‘if she had a white coat on, without chocolate, would she really be Mummy?’
She looked at him with her huge, grave eyes, shook her head, and took the chocolate. And then, quite unlike Mabel, she put down her drink and suddenly threw her arms around him, buried her little head in his shoulder and gave him a kiss: chocolatey, on his shirt.
‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tip a little bit more on Mummy’s coat, just for Christmas?’
He stood up, and pretended to lurch towards me with the mulled wines.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said. We touched paper cups and our eyes met again and, even with the mess of kids and parents thronging around us, somehow neither of us could look away.
‘Mummy!’ It was Billy. ‘Mummy, did you see me?’
‘’Tis de season to hate Billy!’ sang Mabel.
‘Mabel,’ said Mr Wallaker. ‘Stop it.’ Which she did. ‘Of course she saw you, Billy, she was waving at you, as she was specifically instructed not to. Here’s your hot chocolate, Billster.’ He put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. ‘You were great.’
As Billy grinned the fantastic ear-to-ear, sparkle-eyed grin, the old grin, I caught Mr Wallaker’s look, both of us remembering how close Billy had come to— ‘Mummy!’ Billy interrupted. ‘What did you do to your coat? Oh, look, there’s Bikram! Did you bring my bag? Can I go?’
‘Me too, me too!’ said Mabel.
‘Where?’ said Mr Wallaker.
‘Sleepover!’ said Billy.
‘I’m going too!’ said Mabel proudly. ‘Havin’ a sleepover. Wid Cosmata!’
‘Well, that sounds like fun,’ said Mr Wallaker. ‘And is Mummy having a sleepover too?’
‘No,’ said Mabel. ‘She’th all on her own.’
‘As usual,’ said Billy.
‘Interesting.’
‘Mr Wallaker.’ It was Valerie, the school secretary. ‘There’s a bassoon left in the church. What do we do? We can’t leave it in the church and it’s absolutlely enorm—’
‘Oh God. I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s Billy’s. I’ll go and get it.’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Mr Wallaker. ‘Back in a mo.’
‘No! It’s OK! I’ll—’
Mr Wallaker put his hand firmly on my arm. ‘I’ll get it.’
Blinking, head swirling through confused thoughts and emotions, I watched him go off for the bassoon. I packed Mabel and Billy off with their bags and stood by the brazier watching them go with Bikram and Cosmata and their mums and dads. After a few minutes all the other families started leaving too, and I was beginning to feel a bit of a fool.
Maybe Mr Wallaker didn’t mean he was coming back at all. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I mean, maybe ‘Back in a mo’ was just the sort of thing people say when they’re moving around at a social occasion, though he was going for the bassoon, but maybe he’d locked it in a cupboard ready for the next lesson and gone to meet Miranda. And maybe he just gave me the nice look in church because he was sorry for me because I was blubbing during ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. And he only brought the hot chocolate because I was a tragic widow with tragic fatherless children and . . .
I downed a last mouthful of the mulled wine and, chucking my cup in the bin, splattering my coat with red wine to go with the chocolate, set off towards the square, following the last stragglers.
‘Hang on!’
He was striding towards me, holding the enormous bassoon. The stragglers turned to look. ‘It’s all right! I’m taking her carol singing,’ he said, then murmuring as he reached my side, ‘Shall we hit the pub?’
The pub was all cosy, old and Christmassy with flagstone floors, crackling fires and ancient beams decked with boughs of holly: though also full of parents looking at us with intense interest. Mr Wallaker cheerfully ignored the stares, found a booth at the back where no one could see, pulled out my chair for me, put the bassoon next to my chair, saying, ‘Try not to lose it,’ and went to get us drinks.
‘So,’ he said, sitting down opposite, placing the glasses in front of us.
‘Mr Wallaker!’ said one of the Year 6 mothers, peering round the booth. ‘I just wanted to say it was the most marvellous—’
‘Thank you, Mrs Pavlichko,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I deeply appreciate your appreciation. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, truly. Goodbye.’ And she scuttled off, politely dismissed.
‘So,’ he said, sitting down again.
‘So,’ I said. ‘I just want to say thank you again for—’
‘So what’s with your toy boy? The one I saw you with on the Heath?’
‘So what’s with Miranda?’ I said, smoothly ignoring his impertinence.
‘Miranda? MIRANDA?’ He looked at me incredulously. ‘Bridget, she’s TWENTY-TWO! She’s my brother’s stepdaughter.’
I looked down, blinking rapidly, trying to take it all in. ‘So you’re going out with your step-niece?’
‘No! She bumped into me when she was shoe-shopping. You’re the one who’s engaged to be married to a child.’
‘I’m not!’
‘You are!’ he said, laughing.
‘I’m not!’
‘So stop squabbling, and dish.’
I told him the whole story about Roxster. Well, not the whole, whole story: edited highlights.
‘How old was he exactly?’
‘Twenty-nine. Well, no, he was thirty by the time—’
‘Oh, well, in that case –’ his eyes were crinkling at the corners – ‘he’s practically a sugar daddy.’
‘So you’ve been single all this time?’
‘Well, I’m not saying I’ve been living the life of a monk . . .’
He swirled the Scotch around in his glass. Oh God, those eyes.
‘But the thing is, you see –’ he leaned forward confidentially – ‘you can’t go out with someone else, can you? When you’re in lo—’
‘Mr Wallaker!’ It was Anzhelika Sans Souci. She looked at us, mouth open. ‘Sorry!’ she said and disappeared.
I was staring at him, trying to believe what he’d seemed to be about to say.
‘OK, enough school mums?’ he said. ‘If I take you home will you dance to “Killer Queen”?’
I was still in a daze as we made our way through the parents and the compliments – ‘Magnificent performances’, ‘Overwhelmingly accomplished’, ‘Fiercely impressive.’ As we were heading out of the pub door, we saw Valerie. ‘Have a good night, you two,’ she said, with a twinkle.
Outside it was still snowing. I glanced, lustfully, at Mr Wallaker. He was so tall, so gorgeous: the ruggedly handsome jaw above the scarf, the slight glimpse of hairy chest below his shirt collar, the long legs in his dark—
‘Shit! The bassoon.’ I for some reason suddenly remembered, and started heading back in.
He stopped me, again, with a gentle hand on my arm: ‘I’ll get it.’
I waited, breathless, feeling the snow on my cheeks, then he reappeared, with the bassoon and the plastic bag of sausages.
‘Your sausages,’ he said, handing them to me.
‘Yes! Sausages! Good King Wenceslas! The butcher!’ I gabbled nervously.
We were standing very close.
‘Look!’ he said, pointing above. ‘Isn’t that mistletoe?’
‘I think you’ll find it’s an elm with no leaves,’ I continued to gabble without looking up. ‘I mean, it probably just looks like mistletoe because of the snow and—’
‘Bridget.’ He reached out and gently traced my cheekbone with his finger, the cool blue eyes burning into mine, teasing, tender, hungry. ‘This isn’t a biology lesson.’ He raised my mouth to his and kissed me once, lightly, then again, more urgently, and added, ‘. . . yet.’
Oh God. He was so masterful, he was such a MAN! And then we were kissing properly and it felt, once more, like everything was going crazy inside me, flashes and pulses, and like I was driving a super-fast car in a pair of stilettos again, but this time it was all right because the person actually at the wheel was . . .
‘Mr Wallaker,’ I gasped.
‘So sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Did I catch you with the bassoon?’
We both agreed we should take the bassoon safely back to his place, which was a huge flat in one of the lanes off the high street. It had old wooden floors and a blazing fire with a fur hearthrug and candles, and the smell of cooking. A small, smiling Filipino lady was bustling around the kitchen area.
‘Martha!’ he said. ‘Thank you. It looks wonderful. You can go now. Thank you.’
‘Ooh, Mr Wallaker’s in a hurry.’ She smiled. ‘I’m on my way. How the concert go?’
‘It was great,’ I said.
‘Yes, great,’ he said, bustling her out, kissing her on the top of her head. ‘Brass band a bit off but generally good.’
‘You take care of him,’ she said as she left. ‘He the best, Mr Wallaker, the best man.’
‘I know,’ I said.
As the door closed, we stood like children left alone in a sweet shop.
‘Look at this coat,’ he murmured. ‘You’re such a mess. That’s why I . . .’
And then he started slowly unbuttoning the coat, slipping it off my shoulders. For a moment I thought maybe this was a practised routine – maybe that’s why Martha was so quick to leave – but then he said, ‘That’s partly why . . .’ He pulled me close, his hand slipping to my back, starting to slowly undo my zip, ‘I fell . . . in . . . fell in . . .’
I felt my eyes filling with tears, and for a second I could swear his were too. Then he pulled himself back into masterful mode, and laid my head against his shoulder. ‘I’m going to kiss away all your tears. All your tears,’ he growled, ‘after I’ve finished with you.’
Then he carried on with the zip, which went all the way down, so that the dress fell to the floor, leaving me in my boots and – Merry Christmas, Talitha – black La Perla slip.
When we were both naked I couldn’t believe the naughty perfection of Mr Wallaker’s familiar, handsome, school-gates head on top of that incredibly ripped, naked body.
‘Mr Wallaker!’ I gasped again.
‘Will you stop calling me Mr Wallaker?’
‘Yes, Mr Wallaker.’
‘OK. That’s a cut-and-dried Caution which is going to lead inevitably . . .’ he picked me up in his arms, as if I was as light as a feather, which I am not, unless it was a very heavy feather, maybe from a giant prehistoric dinosaur-type bird, ‘. . . to a Misdemeanour,’ he said, laying me gently by the fire.
He kissed my neck, moving slowly, exquisitely downwards. ‘Oh, oh,’ I gasped. ‘Did they teach you this in the SAS?’
‘Naturally,’ he said eventually, raising himself up, looking down with his amused expression. ‘The British special forces have the finest training in the world. But ultimately . . .’
He was pressing now, gently, deliciously, at first, then more and more insistently, till I was melting like a . . . like a— ‘. . . ultimately it’s all about . . .’ – I gasped – ‘. . . the pistol.’
All hell broke loose then. It was like being in heaven, or other, similar paradise. I came and I came and I came, repeatedly, in a tribute to Her Majesty and the training of Her forces, till finally he said, ‘I don’t think I can hold on any longer.’
‘Just go, for it,’ I managed, and finally we both – in a perfect, miraculous, simultaneous explosion of months of desire at the school gates – did.
Afterwards we lay back, panting, exhausted. Then we slept in each other’s arms, then woke and did it again, and again, all night.
At 5 a.m. we had some of Martha’s soup. We huddled by the fire and talked. He told me what had happened in Afghanistan: an accident, a mistaken attack, women, children killed, finding the aftermath. Deciding he’d done his bit and he was through. And this time, I put my arms around him, and stroked his head.
‘I do take your point,’ he murmured.
‘What?’
‘Cuddling. Quite good really.’
He talked about starting at the school. He wanted to be away from the violence, make life simple, be with children and do some good things. He wasn’t prepared for the mothers, though, the competitiveness and the complication. ‘But then one of them was kind enough to show off her thong when stuck up a tree. And I started to think that life could possibly be a bit more fun.’
‘And you like it now?’ I whispered.
‘Yes.’ He started to kiss me again. ‘Oh, yes.’ He was kissing different parts of me between his words. ‘I . . . really . . . definitively . . . conclusively . . . like it now.’
Suffice it to say, when I picked Billy and Mabel up from Bikram’s and Cosmata’s later that day, I was walking with extreme difficulty.
‘Why are you still wearing de chocolatey coat?’ said Mabel.
‘Tell you when you’re grown up,’ I said.
THE OWL
Thursday 12 December 2013
9 p.m. Just put the children to bed. Mabel was staring out of the window. ‘De moon is thtill followin’ us.’
‘Well, the thing is, with the moon—’ I started to explain.
‘And dat owl,’ Mabel interrupted.
I looked out at the snowy garden. The moon was white and full above it. And on the garden wall, the barn owl was back. He stared at me, calm, unblinking. Then this time he spread his wings, looked for a last moment and flew upwards, his wings beating, almost to the beat of my heart, into the winter night and the darkness and its mysteries.
THE YEAR’S PROGRESS
Tuesday 31 December 2013
*Pounds lost 17
*Pounds gained 18
*Twitter followers 797
*Twitter followers lost 793
*Twitter followers gained 794
*Jobs gained 1
*Jobs lost 1
*Texts sent 24,383
*Texts received 24,284 (good)
*Number of screenplay words written 18,000
*Number of words of screenplay rewritten 17,984
*Number of words of screenplay written and put back like were in first place 16,822
*Number of words of texts written 104,569
*People infestered by nits 5
*Total nits extracted 152
*Price per nit of professionally extracted nits £8.59
*Boyfriends lost 1
*Boyfriends gained 2
*Fires in house 4
*Existing children kept intact 2
*Children lost 7 (counting all occasions)
*Children found 7
*Total children 4
OUTCOME
Mr Wallaker – or Scott, as I occasionally call him – and I did not have a wedding, because neither of us wanted to get married again. But we did realize that neither of us had christened our children so decided to make it an excuse for a coming-together party at the big country house. That way, we decided, the children would be covered, like insurance, in case it emerged that the Christian God was the True God, even though both Mr Wallaker and I are slightly Buddhist.
The ceremony was performed in the chapel. The school choir sang, and Scott’s sons Matt and Fred – who are no longer in boarding school but at the Senior School – played ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ on clarinet and piano. I cried most of the time. Greenlight Productions sent a bunch of flowers the size of a sheep; Rebecca had her hair done in an Afro with a lit-up sign saying ‘Motel’ and an arrow pointing down at her head; Daniel got drunk at the party and tried to get off with Talitha, leading to Sergei throwing a giant tantrum and storming off in a rage; and Jude – who had, obviously, got bored with Wildlifephotographerman’s devotion – got off with Mr Pitlochry-Howard and then had a terrible time getting out of it afterwards. Tom and Arkis sulked because we hadn’t invited Gwyneth Paltrow – even though Jake had once played with Chris Martin – and both flirted outrageously with the senior boys in the big band. Mum was still slightly annoyed that I hadn’t worn something more brightly coloured, but got over it because her coat-dress set was clearly nicer than Una’s, and Mr Wallaker is quite happy to indulge her by flirting outrageously and telling her off when she gets out of line, in a way which just makes her titter. Roxster – who had previously sent me a very nice text saying his heart was broken at the loss of his vomiting cougar, but there clearly was a Dating God as his new girlfriend had morning sickness – texted me on the day to say she wasn’t pregnant, it was just that he’d forced her to eat too much food, and she was really annoying. Which was nice.
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