‘Wow, Tommy! That smells amazing!’
I look over to the empty worktop next to me where Tommy McCoy is being played by a broom and Vernon is a microphone stand.
‘You have to not appear distracted, Jools! Vernon will throw lines around like this and you can’t let it get to you.’
I’m more distracted by the fact my salsa looks like it’s been pissed on. Why is it so watery? I can’t tell from this lighting either whether my guacamole is going grey or just looks rubbish. I squeeze more lemon on it. I then stand there for a moment staring at everything. Luella looks highly concerned.
‘You have to appear proactive! Maybe wash something up?’
I look confused. Do I have to? This is the time at home when I’d be letting the food simmer away and sitting down to have a glug of tea and a read of a magazine. I nod and chuck things in the sink. Then I drain the rice and plate up.
‘Three minutes!’
If Ted did this at home, I’d be tempted to throw him out the kitchen window. I spoon everything onto the plate as required and even have time to fold a napkin on the side. What’s that thing that chefs do with their tea towels? Don’t they wipe the sides of the plate down? I try to do that but it ends up an even bigger smudge on the side of the plate. I wipe it with my finger and see Annie laughing.
‘Thirty seconds … twenty-eight …’
I’m done. I stand there and put my hands behind my back. I’m not going to wash up because I don’t want to. I just grab some coriander and chuck it on the side.
‘Ten, nine …’ I let the other numbers wash over me so Luella can have her dramatic finish.
‘STOP COOKING!’
Annie makes a faux angry face, which makes me giggle, and they both come down from their chairs to my workspace. I swizzle my hands around, presenting my food like I’m inviting them to play their cards right. They both look at it curiously.
‘Well, you want to try it?’
Annie shrugs her shoulders and tucks in. Luella puts a notebook down on the side where I can see that in the past hour, she’s dedicated two A4 pages to my failings. She picks up a fork and fluffs at my rice.
‘It’s all right, Jools. Perfectly good chilli. Maybe a bit more spice, a bit more chilli powder?’ says Annie. She comes and gives me a hug. Luella’s lips twist around each other.
‘Rice needs more seasoning, maybe, and I’d be tempted to ditch the coriander – devil’s herb. The guacamole is a touch too sour as well.’
I nod. It’s all entirely constructive so I’m sure I can use it to my advantage.
‘But I have other things.’
I hold my breath.
‘One. You can’t wave at the audience with a big cat grin, the people at home won’t know what you’re doing and it’ll just make you look demented.’
I was trying to be funny given my only audience member was Annie, but never mind.
‘Second, I’m tempted to rethink the dress. You kept doing this plié-style bending at the knees like you were either breaking wind or had some issues down there.’
Annie laughs and salsa flies out her mouth.
‘It’s just, I’m not used to this set up. I’m usually on all fours getting saucepans out of cupboards so I find myself reaching down to get them.’
Luella pulls a confused face and nods.
‘Well, maybe we’ll have you in something a bit comfier. We look like we’re trying too hard to turn you into Bree Van de Kamp. And we’ll rethink the tribal bangles, you just kept getting shit caught in them.’
I nod. Annie grips on to my hand tightly.
‘And I think we need to work on presentation and plating up. Nothing too artsy fartsy but this looks a little crude. A little like …’
A dollop of technicolour cat sick? I think about how I usually plate up, and that’s to arrange the fruit into smiley faces.
‘A little amateurish?’
‘But she is an amateur,’ Annie informs her.
‘True. But this is school dinner plonked on a white plate, it’s a little dull.’
Annie cocks her head from side to side. ‘We could get some pretty earthen crockery to jazz it up a bit,’ she adds.
Luella nods and takes notes.
‘They do those great tapas-style plates with all the different sections; that could work?’ she adds.
‘Or maybe we could also bring in a mariachi band and ply the tasting panel with margaritas?’ I tell them.
They both laugh yet Luella’s eyes seem to question whether this could indeed be possible.
7.16pm
After my run through, I dashed across London to pick the kids up and found that Hannah’s class had made me a good luck card. It made me cry for reasons I wasn’t sure of – today, people were telling me I was headed for disaster and that the only things that would get me through were miracles, luck, and alcohol. So I went with the latter; got home, opened up a bottle of white wine, and started drinking.
So now, I am completely relaxed and watching The One Show for I suspect the same reason everyone else does, because it’s before the good telly and there’s nothing else on the other channels except news. Luella has been here with her last-minute pep talks and is now gone. The children potter about the house, Dad cooks dinner with Millie, and I am getting drunk. This feels almost surreal. Like any other day. Not that I’d be midweek drinking – there are still a hundred and one things to do before day’s end. It feels like nothing and everything could happen tomorrow. Yet I still feel nothing. I down another glug of wine. Maybe it’s the wine. I slump into the sofa and feel a lovely, oozy, warm feeling about my shoulders. This midweek drinking has happened a lot recently. Not sure if I’ve done this much since I was a student. I sit there and think about what’s changed since then. For one, I don’t dye my hair stupid colours any more. I don’t use batik wraps as curtains nor drink two pound bottles of wine from Spar. But some things remain the same. Matt, my poor attempts at an exercise regime, the fact I still don’t have a mother, and that I have big, fat debts hanging over my head. I down half a glass of Chile’s finest. A little person comes in and sits down next to me, snuggling their head into my armpit. Hannah.
‘Is that Kitty McCoy?’
I am so half-drunk, I hadn’t noticed. Yes, it is. She’s talking about tomorrow and wears a strange tabard-style shift under which you can see her bra. Are people allowed to do that at her age? I think about the greying quality of my bras in the drawers upstairs: the comfortable cotton, the downy bits of lace, the dying nursing bras stained with old milk. Then I have a thought that maybe I can wear one tomorrow and the shock of seeing something so horrific would mean no one would look at my cooking. I look back at Kitty. Even her elbows shine like she’s been polished. Her hair is so golden and glistening, the studio lights make her look like Christmas. I nod.
‘I’m glad she isn’t my mummy.’
I stop for a moment and look at Hannah and smile.
‘Why’s that then?’
‘She just doesn’t look like that much fun.’
I infer this to mean I might be fun. I’m not skinny or blonde or boobsy but I am fun. I’ll take that.
‘Harriet’s mum’s like that. When we head out the house, she’s got to make sure her shoes match her outfit and Harriet says she won’t leave the house without lipstick, not even to go and buy milk.’
She stares at the screen with an inquisitive brow as I sigh thinking how glad I am she perceives such vanity over one’s looks to be a failing. Then I sigh again thinking how I’ve sometimes gone into that petrol station on the corner with a pyjama top tucked into my jeans and a beanie over my bed hair.
‘So are we coming to the TV place tomorrow?’
I nod.
‘Yep, Uncles Adam and Ben are coming too … and Aunty Annie. You’ll all be there to watch.’
She snuggles in close. Watch as your mother suffers a breakdown in front of the nation. Who wouldn’t want their eight-year-old there to witness that?
�
��Then why are you sad, Mummy? Don’t be sad. Has Tommy McCoy been saying nasty things again?’
Well, kind of, but I don’t tell her that. I shake my head.
‘Is this about your mummy?’
I shake my head again, wondering where all this empathic insight came from.
‘You think my mummy makes me sad?’
Hannah shrugs her shoulders and nods.
‘You like to cry. Like when people die on EastEnders. Or when we watch X Factor and people talk about their kids and stuff. You get sad a lot.’
She makes me sound like a big blubbering fool. Is it healthy for your child to see that much crying?
‘Well, people can be sad sometimes about stuff. You sad about anything at the moment?’
She shakes her head. This fills me with a big sense of relief.
‘I get sad when you’re sad. That’s all.’
Big swirls of white wine push something inside my brain and the tears start to fall and roll down my cheeks. Hannah’s face turns to ash to think she might have said something untoward in all of that. She jumps on my lap and holds me tight. I call them thunderstorm hugs – they crush your ribs and make your tongue stick out of your mouth like a frog. I look down at her body laid over mine. When did she get so tall? She literally takes up three quarters of me. When did her brain get so big and full of information? I remember the days when we used to sit in our bedsit in Leeds and spend the time looking through library books, and she’d test me on theories of pro-social behaviour and short term memory. Now she is so many things. She has more hair. She doesn’t spend all day in her pyjamas. She has a small overbite that will probably need braces in three or four years’ time. Little Hannah Banana. Maybe you are the reason why things are as they are now. If you hadn’t been conceived, would I still be with Matt? Would I have four kids? Would I be married and about to appear on national television? Probably not. She doesn’t seem to notice me staring at her, questioning the effects of her existence. She just hangs on tight and I squeeze her back. Dad enters the room and looks over at us. He sees my tears, he sees the half empty wine bottle on the floor. He nods his head and leaves the room, mouthing something as he goes.
‘Dinner’s up.’
‘What we having, Grandpa?’
He smiles, oven gloves in hand.
‘Fish finger pie. Ready when you are.’
I laugh so hard snot flies out my nose and into Hannah’s hair.
2.34am
It’s today, it’s today, it’s today. I look over at the clock. Technically, it is today but I don’t sleep. I can’t, I won’t, I shan’t. Occasionally I do drift off but the dreams I have are such horrific versions of possible events involving me spontaneously combusting, shitting myself, and severing digits that aren’t my own that I wake up in cold sweats and find the room awash in that weird navy-blue colour that drowns out every sound and scent and makes me think I’m losing my grip on my sanity. Now I’m worried; that sort of pre-birth worry that everything on the other side of this event may be changed and irreparable for ever. Is this going to be one of those TV moments that live for eternity so in years to come, people will point and mock? So I don’t sleep. I just lie there in my bed and think about all the things that fill me with dread and panic. My mum. My dad. My kids. Losing my kids. Kids being snatched off streets. Matt. Losing Matt. Matt having imaginary affairs with skinny women in his office who don’t exist. Women who have nice shoes and don’t wear knickers. Adam never finding love. Ben becoming some poor, slovenly actor who never gets a break. The fact my kids might grow up to hate me, or start carrying knives, or buy drugs from the ice cream van near the cemetery. Never being able to pay off our mortgage.
‘Are you up? Go to sleep, Jools. You need to sleep.’
‘I can’t. I’m really cacking it.’
‘The amount you drank tonight I thought you’d be dead to the world by now.’
After the wine came another bottle at dinner and then a glass of warm brandy before bed. Enough alcohol to have me miss a couple of stairs, not enough to make me comatose. I think about those fish fingers warming my guts, orange waves of artificial breadcrumbs partying with the white wine. My stomach churns.
‘Talk to me, please.’
Matt rolls over and spoons me. I feel the warmth of his breath nest into the back of my neck, hands grab on to post-baby love handles. He does this so he knows he can sleep and I will talk into blank air like he’s listening.
‘Kitty McCoy was on television tonight. She’s selling Baby Ganoush in tubs now. And a whole new range of fruit dips.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘I’ve never made a fruit dip in my life.’
‘Because there is no need to dip fruit. You can just eat it as it is.’
Silence.
Matt’s quiet, his breath slowing down as he tries to fall back to sleep.
‘What if I throw up on the food?’
‘Parsley. Covers up everything.’
I nudge him in the ribs, thinking about that chilli I made today. Maybe vomit might help? I can feel Matt rubbing his feet together under the duvet. It helps him sleep. Little Hobbit hairs rub against my ankles as he does it.
‘Do you think I can beat McCoy?’
He’s quiet, asleep? He mumbles something I can’t quite make out. I turn to face him.
‘What was that?’
I see his eyes clamped shut. I put my finger up his nose.
‘I think you’re the bravest person I know for doing this but …’
But what, you half-finishing sentence fool? He looks me straight in the eye and then goes to hug me. I’m not sure what to feel. On the one hand, Matt has always been brutally honest with me. Yet on the other, I want him to tell me I will take McCoy down. I will cook him under the fake countertops and come out so victorious people will hold parades in my honour. Maybe I’ll even get to wear a little crown. I want him to believe I’m at least capable. Why am I doing this then? To be a pawn in McCoy’s media game, proving he’s better than everyone? To put myself through this for the sake of bravery? I’m still thinking this as we’re mid-embrace, wondering how this came to be, a semi-decent cook taking on the biggest chef in the land with his numerous accolades and bestselling tomes, when I feel something against my leg. My imminent failure has made my husband hard? I push him away.
‘I’m glad the fact that I’m going to make a tit of myself on national television is so arousing.’
He laughs. Again, not very morale boosting. He brushes my hair from my face and looks at me again, the way Matt does, like he’s studying my face for something I’m not sure is there. He then goes to kiss me so I won’t press him for the answer he’s not yet given me. Idiot. Idiot because it’s almost working. This is not kissing like he normally does. It’s soft, drawn-out, and attentive like we’re in the back of a cinema. His hands are in a new place. Not on my boobs like they normally are, squeezing them like oranges. On my face, cupping my chin, tracing the outline of my cheeks. You bastard. Trying to distract me with nice kissing. He rolls on to me, our legs straddling each other, feet touching. His weight on me, he whispers into my ear.
‘It will be fine.’
The sex or the cooking? I’m too tired to ask him which. I just let him cup my buttocks in his hands, trying to remove my knickers and kick them off the edge of the bed. It’s always the same with Matt, safe, warm sex, like a hot water bottle except without the knobbly bit that gets stuck in your back. Even better than that. Maybe this will help me get to sleep.
7.10 a.m.
The sex did help me get to sleep. It was like being on a ship rocking its way to shore on a light current. Matt fell asleep inside me without coming, until I pushed him off and literally tucked him in. Then I rolled over and passed out myself. This time my dreams involved cooking on a boat like Keith Floyd, surrounded by wine and drinking myself into oblivion under the Greek sun until I didn’t really care about what I was cooking. To be honest, it was very comforting.
T
he only thing is next morning, while Matt and I are in our semi-states of undress, we’re woken up by Luella. Quite literally. She bursts into our bedroom, no knocking, no tea.
‘Up, guys. Your dad let me in.’
She rubs her hands together as Matt tries to position himself under the duvet as so to not let on that’s he’s stark bollock naked under there. My dad?
‘Action stations. Gia and your dad are downstairs making the breakfast and the twins are already watching Rastamouse. Chop chop. Hahahaha, how appropriate.’
She exits the room as I realise she was standing on my half-worn underwear at the foot of the bed. Outside, the sky is grey and the clouds hang low as if they know what today will bring. I feel my forehead to see if I am warm enough to carry a fever. No such luck.
Today is to be run with military precision, we know this as Luella printed out itineraries for us that she laminated and attached to every wall in the house. The children will go to school as normal. A people carrier will arrive at 12 p.m. to take myself and Luella to the TV studio. Dad and Gia, who are too nervous to be present, are going to stay at home with Millie and watch on our TV. Three o’clock and the kids will be picked up by Uncle Ben in another people carrier and dropped at the studio. Uncle Adam, Annie, and Matt will meet us at the studio at 6-ish. The live telecast will begin at 8 p.m.
So, for a day that starts at midday, I am curious as to why Luella is here at the crack of dawn. I pull on knickers and a dressing gown and find Millie sitting in her cot, hearing all the commotion. She puts her arms up to me, her hair all matted onto her face like a little red helmet. It’s sad she won’t be there to see this thing through with me. She was there at the beginning, when it all started. She faced off against Kitty McCoy like a faithful mini henchman. She endured a Photoshop disaster. Now she’ll have to see the end via a television next to my dad. She puts her head against my chest and gives me what I’m going to call a hug. I’m here for you Mum, you can do this. That, and I need a new nappy.
Souper Mum Page 28