Confessions of a Bad Mother (27 page)

Somehow she has managed to experience this without me. But with whom?
Where? When? Making lipstick with a red Smartie is a special moment in a
girl’s life, and she has done it with someone else. In the back of my
head it feels like the wobbling glass of water in
Jurassic Park
, a
warning of the time when she will escape my influence altogether.

But until then, I shall face the pink blizzard. Or at least keep my head
up. I might even let her have the ballet lessons, on condition she keeps up the
karate or, if she goes off that, boxing.

Or maybe I’ll just buy her a gun. A pink one, of course.

The continual changes of behaviour – the children’s, and
therefore ours – are beginning to take their toll. The childcare books
that were around when they were babies have given way to child-management
manuals, with chatty titles like
How to Talk So Your Child Will Listen
and
Listen So Your Child Will Talk
. Some, like that one, actually do
make some sense. But they tend to assume a progressive scenario, where the
correct application of behaviour modifying strategies, and the increasing age
of the children, combine to create an ever more harmonious domestic scene. What
they don’t describe is the sensation of going backwards, and how a
civilized meal for four can descend in minutes into a trailer for
The Jerry
Springer
Show
.

In the horrible West Country pub, still arguing over Lydia’s
chips, or lack of them, I ponder how quickly we can change from civilized
people – us talking, the children drawing – into monsters. And I
think about how tired I am of it all. Tired of Peter pretending to be so bloody
reasonable all the time. Tired of children whose needs I’m supposed to
put first. All the time! I’m not a mother, I’m a servant. All that
stuff they leave on the floor. I am SICK SICK
SICK
of it! Even when I
began to actually want children, I never counted among my ambitions
‘
to get a job as a slave
’. Hey, Gloria Steinem!

Remember when you couldn’t understand why you felt such solidarity
with black women? Then you realized it was because you all belonged to the
Female Underclass. I’m with you, baby! I’m
there
! Right now
I am so identified with those Filipina maids locked up by mad, rich employers
who take their passports away – if you spoke to me I’d answer in
Tagalog. The kids roam the house, discarding clothes, swords, wands, marbles,
toast and Lego, and I follow, almost permanently on my knees. Bending and
picking, bending and picking; I’m like an extra in
Gone
With
The Wind
.

And at the same time, I feel this:

Somehow I’ve been allowed to become a parent, and I still
can’t believe I’ve got away with it. Look, here I am crossing the
road with them. Here I am, driving them down the motorway to my mother’s.
They are
in
my charge
. I can take them
anywhere
. I can
take them
to
the park
. On
my own
. Really, is no one going
to stop me? It doesn’t seem possible. I’ve got the Crown Jewels
here.
Me.
And I just
know
something bad’s going to
happen.

‘Come
back
!’

‘Get
down
!’

‘That tree’s way too high for you!’

‘If you jump on there, you’ll fall down and hurt
yourself.’

‘Don’t climb up the outside of the stairs! You’ll fall
on the tiles and crack your head open!’

‘Hold my hand when we cross the road! Don’t pull
away!’

‘The drivers can’t
see
you! Don’t you
realize?!!’

‘If you run across that road without holding my hand you’ll
get hit by a car …’

I can’t let go of their hands or they’ll jump in front of a
car. Lorries have magnets that will drag them under the wheels. I can’t
let them out of the swings enclosure because they’ll run off and not come
back. A centrifugal force will propel them away from me and they’ll be
gone forever, like the beads of a necklace spilled down a drain. I’ve got
to anchor them somehow. I should be the centre of their orbit, but I have no
gravitational pull. This is how you end up being over-protective.
This
is how you end up with them still living at home at forty-five in
cardigans, watching every episode ever made of
Blake’s
Seven
. It’s not cruelty: it’s fear. I lie awake seeing
terrible things: snuff movies that wait for the hours of deepest darkness and
switch themselves on in my head.

In the park once, we saw a man with a baby in a pushchair. He was
OK-looking but a bit wet, the sort of man we’ll probably encourage Lydia
to go out with on the grounds that he won’t insist on sex. He was being
so
nice to this kid: ‘Look at those ducks! They’re swimming,
aren’t they? Oh! Would you like your hood pulled back a little bit?
That’s
better!’

My two were whining for food. I offered them apples, which they
didn’t want, and then they saw the chocolate biscuits I was saving for
later. I handed over the biscuits and growled at them for dropping the wrappers
on the ground. Then I growled at them for getting chocolate on their fleeces.
Then I growled at them to be quieter: there are other people trying to enjoy
the ducks, you know! Next to this guy and his baby we were like those families
you hope won’t come near you on holiday, who just shout, consume and
exist in their own ecosystem of crap. I was sure he’d decided I was
called Britney and had a tattoo.

As they moved off towards the swings Lydia said, ‘Why has that
baby got that thing on its face?’ It was a drip. The poor little thing
had a tube in its nose, with a huge-looking piece of tape to hold it in place.
It was ill. No wonder its dad was being so nice. My children were perfect and I
was growling at them. If they’d had something wrong with them, perhaps
I’d have been nice too. But since they weren’t dying or anything I
could afford to growl. And then I felt terrible.

While I’ve been thinking this, Peter has persuaded Lawrence to
give up some of his chips in return for advance ownership of the chocolate that
comes with the coffee. Lydia’s not entirely happy with this arrangement,
not surprisingly since there’ll only be one chocolate because I’m
not having coffee; I’m killing my husband and going back to London
instead. Peter orders them ice creams, and finishes up with the Deluxe Special,
the line that comes just before they shove you in the attic and turn the
key.

‘Look, why don’t you go off and relax? I’ll handle
this.’

‘Why don’t you fuck off?’

I go out to the car and half read the paper. And it occurs to me that
the period we’re always looking ahead to, the Calm Time, when life stops
being so volatile, is something we’ve just imagined. When they were
babies we looked forward to their walking and talking, but that presented a new
set of challenges, such as falling downstairs and answering back. When they
were toddlers we looked forward to their feeding themselves, and learning to
read, but that provoked new challenges such as eating ve-ry slow-ly and whining
at us when we turned out the light. At each stage we’ve envisaged a
plateau, a resting place where, after a steep climb, the landscape flattens and
opens out. And I realize that like the person who thinks that getting married
is the solution, rather than merely the opportunity to fight with the same
person each day instead of different ones, we have fundamentally misunderstood
the whole thing.

What we have to look forward to are just a variety of ever-changing
scenarios which we are unable to control or predict. Round the corner we almost
certainly have some form of best friend, she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not soap
operas for Lydia, and being shoved by larger boys with stubble, on or off the
pitch for Lawrence. Then there’ll be voices breaking, and meticulously
planned parties to which the cool people may not come. And after that, hushed
phone calls, doors slamming – ‘
What’s the
matter?’
‘
NOTHING!
’ – and me and Peter
fighting over who drives across town to collect them at 2 a.m., to be followed
by driving lessons at £245 an hour. And beyond that, I can see worry:
worry about their going to Burma in their gap year and falling in love with a
dissident and going to jail; worry about their staying here and lying on their
beds smoking dope for the rest of their lives; worry about their settling down
too young; worry about their not settling down at all; worry about their not
fulfilling their dreams, not being happy, not being well or getting run over on
a road somewhere because at thirty-two they still forget to look both ways and
look again. Worry about how they will cope with life when we’re gone. Now
I’m worrying about dying early and leaving them orphaned. If I let my
mind roam, I can think of at least ten ways I could die tomorrow, without even
leaving the house.

There is no Calm Time and never will be. This is a truly terrifying
thought. I close my paper and ponder the immensity of it. Behind the trees, the
sun is dropping. Peter and the children are coming towards me, laughing. They
have charmed two more chocolates out of the waitress. Peter bends down and
kisses me through the window.

‘Hello, darling!’

He gets them into their seats and they each take a book out of the
pocket as we drive off.

‘Aren’t they beautiful?’

‘Yeah …’

And I know there aren’t two people in the whole world I would
rather have my life wrecked by.

I’m on my way out one evening, and Lawrence calls out from his
position in front of the TV: ‘Good luck, Mummy! If you get in any
trouble, you know our phone number.’