1
Claire’s phone buzzed as she was having what felt like the fifteenth argument of the week with Lucas about how she didn’t care if tomato sauce DID count as one of his five-a-day, he was NOT substituting his lovingly cooked vegetables on his plate for a vat of ketchup, and actually, no, NO!, because she SAID so, and it was not up for discussion. Meanwhile Tabitha wittered on at her about ponies, about how a pony was all she had ever EVER wanted and of course she’d totally look after a pony if she had one, and please, Mummy, please, could she have a pony?
Claire glanced at her phone as she attempted to smile devotedly at her darling children. She took a deep breath and did not shout, ‘Of course you can’t have a fucking pony. Do you know how much they cost, and you said exactly the same about “looking after them” about the sodding guinea pigs, the existence of which you now ignore, you lazy little beast,’ and instead explained in a calm, rational and loving way what a great expense and commitment a pony is, however much one might want one – and love one – and actually there is a big difference between playing with your My Little Ponies and looking after a real, live, pooping, snorting, hungry horse. Her phone screen showed a text from Andrew.
Sorry darling, meeting ran over, have to take the client for dinner now, I’ll probably be late, see you when I get in. Love you xxxxx
Claire sighed. She knew, of course, that Andrew worked very hard. She knew it was not his fault he often had to work late, or that part of his job involved wining and dining his clients in nice restaurants while she sat at home wrangling broccoli down his darling children before supervising homework and bath time and bedtime alone. Sometimes, however, it was difficult not to feel resentful that she was always the one left picking up the slack of their home life. He huffed and puffed about how stressful it all was, but he was the one eating Châteaubriand and Bearnaise sauce rather than a packet of Monster Munch in front of EastEnders. Andrew frequently protested that he’d much rather be at home arguing with Tabitha and Lucas about the very real possibilities of them contracting scurvy, but Claire sometimes felt that was easy enough to say when you didn’t actually have to do it.
She reminded herself, though, of how exhausted Andrew frequently looked when he finally got home and that he had almost been in tears when he discovered he’d be away on an unavoidable trip for Lucas’s birthday last year. She was lucky he worked enough hours to enable her to pick the kids up from school one day a week and be there for them at dinnertime, etc, instead of having to work equally long hours herself. Claire gave herself a shake, because her cherubs were once more wittering on at her like budgies who’d had their Trill laced with speed.
‘Mum, you’re not meant to be on your phone at mealtimes,’ clamoured Lucas.
‘Yeah, Mum, no screens at the table. Remember, that’s YOUR rule,’ Tabitha chimed in. ‘If you’re on your phone, we should totally be allowed to watch our iPads. You’re such a hypocrite!’
‘First,’ said Claire, ‘I’m not actually eating, am I? I’m just keeping you two company while you eat. And second, I’m not “on my phone”. I was just reading a text from Daddy, that’s all.’
‘What does Dad say?’ asked Lucas.
‘Just that he’s going to be late again.’
‘AGAIN?’ wailed Tabitha. ‘But he’s always late! I wanted to show him the spreadsheet I made about why I should get a pony and how it won’t be too expensive like you say, Mum, and how I’d definitely have time to look after it. I bet Dad would understand. Can I stay up and show it to him?’
‘No.’
‘If she’s staying up, I’m staying up too,’ said Lucas, ‘or else it’s not fair! And if she’s getting a pony, I want a new PlayStation. And Grand Theft Auto.’
‘No one is staying up. No one is getting a pony. No one is getting a new PlayStation. And definitely NO ONE is getting GTA, for the millionth time. You’re too young and it’s not suitable!’
‘Toby has it!’
‘I don’t care what Toby has. Eat your dinner.’
‘Emma’s got a pony at her granny’s; can I get a pony to keep at Granny’s instead, then?’
‘Granny lives in London. In a flat. Where exactly are you going to keep a pony at Granny’s?’
‘Can I get Call of Duty then?’
‘JUST STOP TALKING AND EAT YOUR DINNER, PLEASE!’
‘It’s not fair, you keep telling us we aren’t allowed to have our iPads at dinner because we’re supposed to make conversation, and now you tell us to be quiet when we’re just trying to make conversation!’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ muttered Claire under her breath, as she opened the fridge to see what she could find for a solitary, no-effort dinner, since there didn’t seem much point in going to the trouble of cooking the salmon fillets she had bought for her and Andrew if she was on her own (the children regarded any form of fish not encased in breadcrumbs as toxic, and were resistant enough to the delicious homemade fishfingers she had made for them, insisting they much preferred Captain Birdseye’s version). The children continued to fight behind her. White wine was starting to look like quite an appealing dinner actually. Maybe just a small glass.
‘Are you having wine, Mum? You know you’re not supposed to have wine every night. We did about alcohol units at school. That’s quite a big glass of wine – how many units do you think are in it?’
‘Bet the bastards didn’t tell you that wine is remarkably good at cancelling out whining though, did they?’ muttered Claire.
‘This is all cold. I don’t like it cold, I don’t want it now.’
‘It’s COLD because you’ve been pushing it round your plate for FORTY minutes while you babble on about ponies!’ exploded Claire. ‘If you’d eaten it in the first place when I put it on the table when it was HOT, it wouldn’t have had time to get cold! JUST EAT IT!’
‘You shouldn’t shout at us, Mum.’
‘It’s against our rights. So’s making us eat vegetables. Our bodies are our own and you can’t make us do things we don’t want to. We could report you.’
‘Who to? Who are you going to report me to for crimes against broccoli?’
‘The NSPCC,’ said Lucas smugly. ‘We had a lady come in at school and tell us never to let anyone make us do anything that makes us feel uncomfortable. These fishfingers make me feel uncomfortable. Why can’t we just have the frozen ones? And vegetables make me feel sick, that’s worse than uncomfortable.’
‘Or we could report her to UNICEF,’ chimed in Tabitha helpfully. ‘Remember the assembly we had last week about the UN Rights of the Child? About how we’re entitled to respect, and to have our opinions listened to? How do we report Mummy to UNICEF, do you think, because I definitely don’t feel like I’m having my opinions respected right now!’
‘Oh for FU-FIDDLESTICKS SAKE!’ exploded Claire. ‘Vegetables and homemade fishfingers do not contravene the UN Rights of the Child, nor is it a matter for the NSPCC. STOP being ridiculous, and EAT YOUR DINNER!’
‘We could start a petition,’ mused Tabitha. ‘I expect Granny would sign it. And Grumble and Gramps. And we could ask the neighbours.’
‘How do you even know what a petition is?’ demanded Claire.
‘I saw it on EastEnders,’ said Tabitha.
‘You’re not allowed to watch EastEnders,’ said Claire.
‘Grumble and Gramps let me watch it when I’m at their house.’
‘Oh, do they?’ said Claire, reflecting that perhaps she needed to have a word with her parents about what was considered suitable viewing for their grandchildren. ‘Just eat your dinner. You’re not reporting me to the NSPCC, or UNICEF, or starting a petition round the neighbours about the iniquities of green vegetables, nor are you calling Childline.’
‘What’s Childline?’ asked Lucas.
‘It was a phone line that children could call if they were being mistreated at home and had no one to turn to for help,’ said Claire rashly, as Lucas’s eyes lit up. ‘I don’t think it still exists,’ she hastily added. ‘You had to call it from a landline.’ She was well aware of both Lucas and Tabitha’s bafflement at the purpose of a landline; the only thing that confused them more was when she tried to tell them about phone boxes and why they existed. Tabitha had howled with laughter one time when she was going through a box of Claire’s old things, looking for dressing-up clothes, and had found an old address book. ‘But why did you have to write their phone numbers down, Mummy? Why didn’t you just put them into your phone?’ A world without tablets and smartphones was utterly alien to her children.
Lucas heaved a martyred sigh and stared at his plate. ‘I could probably finish my dinner if I could watch my iPad,’ he offered.
Claire glanced at the clock. The prospect of dinner with her children continuing in this vein for another forty minutes was not a cheerful one.
‘Fine. Watch your iPads. No, I’ll not take the parental controls off. No, you cannot buy anything. Just watch Netflix or something, OK?’
Three hours, several arguments, a semi-flooded bathroom after the children’s showers and a final threat of all internet disconnected for the foreseeable future if either child set foot outside their bedroom again later, Claire finally collapsed on the sofa. Andrew would not be home for at least another hour, possibly two. Claire considered what to do next. She had work to finish, but frankly, she was now so brain dead she could barely follow the plot of The Crown.
And, of course, there was still the laundry. There was always laundry. Sometimes Claire thought that laundry should be included in your marriage vows. ‘Do you, Claire, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, in sickness and health, for richer, for poorer, for full laundry baskets, and mountains of ironing because he thought his T-shirt “smelled a bit funny” when he took it out the drawer so he just chucked it in the fucking wash because apparently there is a magic fairy who comes and does the washing and folds it and puts it away again, and also does the ironing, so it is absolutely fine for him to take another shirt out the cupboard because he’s “too hot” in the one he just put on, and no, obviously he’s “worn it” now, so it can’t be just put back in the cupboard even though he only “wore it” for about three minutes, and obviously any time he’s asked to help with the laundry, despite being so Very Busy and Important as he never ceases to fucking remind you, he’ll immediately become extremely incompetent and summons you to ask inane and STUPID questions to waste your time until it would have been quicker just to do it yourself, to have and to hold from this day forth, until death do you part, or you smother him with a pile of dirty towels?’
Claire was wearily sorting the darks from the whites, and swearing under her breath at discovering the entire pile of clean laundry she had put in Lucas’s room the day before dumped back in the wash because he couldn’t be bothered to put it away, when the doorbell rang. Claire continued to swear to herself as she stomped to the door to give short shrift to the Jehovah’s Witnesses or chuggers or whoever had the temerity to ring her doorbell at 9 p.m. She flung open the door, tirade at the ready, and instead beamed with joy, because there stood Emily, brandishing a bottle.
‘Ems! What are you doing here?’
‘AUNTY EMILY!!!!’ bellowed Lucas and Tabitha, charging down the stairs. ‘Can we stay up now Aunty Emily is here?’
‘No!’ snapped Claire.
‘PLEASE, Aunty Emily,’ begged Tabitha.
‘Yeah, it’s not fair! Aunty Emily is, like, my godmother. I should totally be allowed to stay up,’ argued Lucas.
‘Not tonight, kids!’ said Emily cheerfully. ‘It’s late, and I’ve come for a chat with your mum. How about I quickly tuck you both back in, and next time I come we’ll have a Frustration marathon? How does that sound?’
The children, who would have argued with Claire for at least another twenty minutes, agreed immediately to Emily’s offer and headed back up the stairs. Five minutes later, Emily was back down in the kitchen.
‘So?’ said Claire.
‘I had another shitty date, and I left early again. It seems to be becoming a pattern,’ said Emily. ‘Where’s the corkscrew, Claire? It’s not in the drawer.’
‘Oh God, I don’t know. Andrew’s probably moved it,’ said Claire, as Emily rummaged round before triumphantly producing the corkscrew and swiftly opening the bottle – a rather nicer bottle than she was accustomed to, Claire noted with pleasure.
‘So, what happened?’ asked Claire, getting down two glasses.
‘All men are pigs!’ said Emily cheerfully. ‘Only two glasses? I take it Lady Di is out again, then?’
‘Client dinner.’ Claire found that now Emily was here though, she didn’t mind in the slightest that Andrew was out; in fact she was rather glad, as Andrew tended to be irritated by Emily and Claire’s friendship, and had never lived down the fact that he had once drunkenly ranted that there ‘were three people in this marriage’, leading to Emily henceforth referring to him as Lady Di. Which didn’t really help matters.
‘Ah. The Busy and Important Client Dinners.’ Emily nodded wisely. ‘Still, right now, I’d take Lady Di and his client dinners over another evening listening to an Edgar boring on at me before lunging.’
‘Another Edgar?’ asked Claire in dismay.
‘Yes. Oh God, how little did we know, Claire, when Edgar Trewarren asked me to dance at the Christmas ball when we were fifteen and just pawed at me with his disgusting sweaty palms, how many of his ilk there were out there? I’m starting to think that the only men left single now are Edgars. In fact, I’m just waiting for Edgar Trewarren himself to swipe right on me and send a dick pic.’
‘No, he’s married,’ said Claire consolingly. ‘Very plain woman, wears a lot of Boden.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Andrew has a lot of client dinners. I get bored. I stalk people on Facebook.’
‘You must have been very bored to have stalked Edgar Trewarren!’
‘I was. I’d run out of anyone else to stalk, and I wanted to see how much more unattractive he’d got with age. The answer was – quite a lot.’
‘Ugh.’ Emily shuddered. ‘I was going to say, “Show me,” but I don’t think I want to see. Those sweaty palms haunt me still. He left sweat marks on my favourite burgundy taffeta dress. I just thank the lord your mum had safety-pinned me in too stoutly for him to leave sweat marks on anything else! Have you stalked anyone else interesting lately?’
‘Head-Girl-Hattie has her Facebook privacy settings locked down, but she updates her Twitter bio with the latest Very Important Company she’s Very Important at. And I dip in and...
