The Only Boy For Me

by Gil McNeil

  Barney is already sitting in the meeting room looking thunderous. It turns out he came in early and tried to make a cup of coffee with his new machine, and managed to scald his thumb with boiling-hot water by pressing the wrong button at the wrong moment. Stef warns me that he’s behaving as if amputation might be the only way forward, and has told her to bugger off, twice, and take that bloody machine with her. I make a huge fuss of his thumb, which has a tiny red mark on it, and produce one of Charlie’s dinosaur sticking plasters from my handbag and offer to stick it on, to ‘keep the wound clean’. He is almost tempted, but finally recovers himself and tells me to sod off. I find some Savlon in the office first-aid kit, and insist on smearing his thumb with about half the tube. Barney is delighted, and cheers up hugely now he has had ointment and a proper fuss made of him. Just like Charlie, really, but with less screaming and slightly more swearing.

  We’re talking about plans for the shoot in Cornwall next week, when Lawrence bustles in. He hates not being in meetings, and says do we need him? The honest answer would be no, but Barney can’t resist the temptation of telling him all about his dreadful injury. Lawrence says oh he knows all about scalds, he burnt his whole hand once on a kettle and it was agony. Barney looks at him with utter contempt, and asks him where on earth did he get those trousers. Lawrence is wearing brown leather trousers today – a serious mistake not least because the sofas in the meeting room are also leather, so comic sound effects are produced every couple of minutes, much to his embarrassment and Barney’s delight.

  The accountant, Ron, turns up and he and Barney go upstairs. Barney has clearly forgotten telling Stef to bugger off, and asks her if she would make them some tea. Peace is restored, and we all get on with some work. I then have a tedious meeting with Ron trying to explain Barney’s expenses from the last couple of shoots. As Barney’s filing system consists of stuffing receipts in his pocket and occasionally chucking them all in a drawer, this takes some time. We discover receipts for all sorts of things I have no memory of, and have to be very creative. Finally Ron agrees to let me go, but says he may have to call me on a couple of things in the next day or two. Lovely.

  The list of messages on my desk makes me feel faint, so I go out and eat cake and drink so much black coffee that I have a major caffeine rush and wonder if I’m having a heart attack. I suddenly remember sausage rolls for Charlie’s lunch tomorrow and try all the smart patisseries on Old Compton Street, but they look at me like I’m mad and can only offer spinach quiche. Finally I have to trudge to M&S in Oxford Street, and buy two packets of large sausage rolls as instructed. I do not allow myself to even consider buying anything else or I’ll be there for hours trying to visualise what’s in the fridge. The woman on the till looks at me with pity, obviously assuming I’m having some sort of food crisis and am about to eat eight jumbo sausage rolls for lunch. I get back to the office to find the list of messages has grown even longer, but I rally and manage to make a huge number of calls and confirm most of the crew before I realise it’s nearly six and I haven’t called home.

  Edna is fine, but Charlie is not. He hated the pizza Edna made for supper, and wants to know if he can stay up late to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which will give him nightmares. Complicated negotiations follow, which eventually result in him agreeing to go to bed at the usual time if he can watch a video of Buffy tomorrow night with me, which means I can distract him by tickling him during especially scary moments. This annoys him intensely, but it does mean he won’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Edna doesn’t know how to use the video – in fact I’ve only just persuaded her that using the microwave won’t affect her perm. So I have to go through a long instruction process which I know will result in her taping the world bowls final.

  I’m meeting Leila in a trendy new club for an early supper. I arrive late, as usual, and she’s sitting by the bar looking wonderful in a new suit, which must have cost a fortune. It did, but it makes her look fabulous, so, as she quite rightly says, it’s really a bargain. The place is full of skeletally thin young women who appear to have come out in their underwear and very little else. Lots of lacy slips, very high shoes and tiny little cardigans. Floral is back in, apparently, but only in acid colours. And only if you are a size eight. Otherwise long black jackets are still popular. I feel about eighty, and don’t think my long black jacket is long enough. But will this stop me having pudding? Not a chance.

  I’m not drinking as I’ll be driving later, but Leila is making serious inroads into a bottle of champagne and is on top form. There are loads of advertising types milling about, so we do lots of useful but exhausting networking. I’m reminded yet again that my ability to remember people’s names is less developed than it should be. Leila remembers everyone, including the names of their children and pets. I can barely recall the name of a really nice woman I worked with last year – and we spent all night bonding in the hotel bar listing all the things we hated about directors, men in general, our thighs, and hairdressers who cut your hair too short.

  Finally we move to our table, and a very complicated ordering process begins. Leila is on some new diet, and can only eat very odd combinations of foods, but also has to make sure that the things I order are the things she really wants, so she can eat mine and it won’t count because she didn’t order it. It’s all going well until we get to the chips, when I suggest it might be best if we order two portions, and she gets cross and says I’m not playing the game properly at all. In the end we settle for a large bowl, and thankfully when the food arrives the bowl turns out to be enormous and barely fits on the table, so all is well. I tell Leila that Mum has booked a villa in Spain for a week, for the half-term holidays after Easter, and has invited me and Charlie. It’ll be a brilliant way to escape the usual spring weather of gales and torrential rain. Mum says she fancies a little holiday and Dad has invented a golf tournament so he doesn’t have to come. He’s not keen on holidays with the under-tens. Leila thinks a holiday is an excellent idea, and is planning something similar. Her idea of something similar turns out to be a week in Venice, and I offer to swap but she is having none of it and says Charlie would be bored in the Cipriani, and would be honour-bound to fall into the Grand Canal. Sadly I have to agree, and promise to bring her back a straw donkey.

  We move on to general gossip, and Leila makes me laugh so much I nearly choke at one point, and have to be banged on the back by the waiter. To be honest, I don’t think he needed to slap quite that hard, but composure is regained and Leila points out it could be worse: he could have tried the Heimlich manoeuvre. I almost wish he had, as trying to lift me up would have wiped the smile off his face. The puddings are glorious – Leila’s new diet positively encourages crème brûlée, apparently – and the coffee and the bill arrive without the usual half-hour wait. Perhaps the waiter thinks I may start choking again. Leila insists on paying and makes me promise to put my share towards a present for Charlie, but only if it’s something noisy and plastic. She is now off to meet a new man and go dancing. I cannot imagine where she gets her energy from, as I can barely stagger back to the car.

  The lift is not working and by the time I make it up to the top floor I’m in need of oxygen and a lie-down. It’s pouring with rain and the ramp has gone all slippery. Nearly fall over twice. I finally make it back to the car, and collapse exhausted. I could do with a nice little sleep, but make do with taking my bra off to get more comfortable, without taking my jumper off, which involves various contortionist-type movements. Just as I’m pulling my bra out of my sleeve, I realise the car opposite is no longer unoccupied. The man in the driving seat stares blankly at me, and I don’t think he’s actually seen anything as he’s trying to work out how to drive back down the ramp without aquaplaning into the wall at the bottom. But the woman in the passenger seat is most amused.

  The drive home is much more relaxed than the journey in. A Merc flashes past at well over a hundred, and about five minutes later I spot it on the hard shoulde
r, accompanied by a police car. Hurrah. Finally the motorway police have done something useful. The police car is lit up like a Christmas tree so I can’t imagine how the Merc driver didn’t spot it, but presume driving at over a hundred in the outside lane used up his entire brain. When I get home, Edna is dozing by the fire. She’s remembered to put the outside lights on, so I don’t fall into the flowerbed when I get out of the car, like I usually do. It’s the perfect end to a long day, and she says Charlie was an angel, which I know is a downright lie but nevertheless very nice to hear. The video has worked and she’s thrilled. I decide not to tell her that she’s taped the wrong channel.

  The sausage rolls are a huge hit next morning, and inevitably Charlie is desperate to eat one for breakfast.

  ‘Mummy, don’t you think sausage rolls are brilliant?’

  ‘Marvellous.’

  ‘Yes, and whoever thought of them deserves a medal, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. Now hurry up and put your socks on or we’ll be late.’

  ‘Can you get a medal for things like sausage rolls?’

  ‘Charlie, I don’t know, put your socks on.’

  ‘Alright, alright, there’s no need to shout. I was just asking. Honestly, you need to relax more, you know, Mummy.’

  He gives me an angelic smile, and I’m strongly tempted to put a sausage roll up his nose.

  ‘I love you, Mummy. Can there be sausage rolls for tea as well?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie, I expect there can.’

  I’ve booked a hair appointment for Charlie in honour of Leila’s visit, and have promised him lunch at Pizza Express in an attempt to convince him it is actually possible to leave the house on Saturday morning without watching the entire range of children’s cartoon programmes. He’s unconvinced, but relents when I say he can also have ice-cream for pudding. The hairdresser, Tracy, is very sweet and asks Charlie what kind of haircut he would like.

  ‘I want deadlocks – they’re very trendy, you know.’

  Tracy is not quite sure what deadlocks are, but if he means dreadlocks his hair is not quite long enough.

  ‘OK, but not too short because my ears get very cold, you know.’

  She busies herself snipping away, and I begin reading a chapter from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Last time we came I forgot to bring a book, and we ended up playing I Spy for what seemed like hours. Charlie won with a word beginning with F, which worried me a lot so I insisted we went into whispering mode, and the answer turned out to be Fat Lady. So a book is a much safer option. I’ve nearly finished the chapter when Tracy announces his haircut is done, but would I mind reading to the end of the chapter because it’s such a lovely story, and isn’t the Snow Queen a cow. I finish off the chapter while Tracy very slowly brushes imaginary hair off his neck.

  Leila arrives early the next morning, and says Charlie’s haircut is the most stylish thing she’s ever seen, and we drive into Whitstable. As soon as we get out of the car, Charlie hurtles off towards the sea, and manages to get thoroughly soaked within five minutes. I’ve got a spare set of clothes for him in the car but timing is crucial: if I change him too early he’ll soak the new clothes before we get into the restaurant for lunch, and if we hang about too long he’ll get hypothermia. His legs are already pale mauve. Leila and I sit gossiping on the pebbles, which are incredibly uncomfortable after about two minutes, though undeniably picturesque. Leila is wearing various shades of cream, with marvellous pink sandals that look very delicate. She can’t actually walk in the sandals, but she doesn’t care because they’re so pretty. I quite agree, and want a pair myself.

  Leila’s new man is shaping up very nicely. He’s single, with no obvious psychological disorders, not married, no extra-curricular children, and he earns a fortune. He is also fantastic in bed, and does a very clever trick with his tongue. He works in the City but is not boring, according to Leila. I can well believe it if the trick with his tongue is not something he saves for special occasions only. He’s called James, which Charlie says is a very good name, just like his best friend. Leila thinks this is an omen, and is clearly very smitten. She admits to thinking about how good he would look at the altar, which is a very bad sign since she usually doesn’t get to wedding fantasies quite so soon. She asks Charlie if he would agree to wear a kilt and be a pageboy, and he says yes, and then we explain what a kilt is and he looks at us like we are both mad.

  ‘Mummy, you should get married, and then I could have a dad. I’d get extra toys then, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Not really, Charlie, you’d get the same but they’d be from both of us.’

  ‘Oh. Well, anyway I think it’d be nice.’

  Oh God. Does this mean the poor little thing is traumatised and longing for a father figure, and I haven’t noticed? Feeling crushed at my selfishness I give him a cuddle. Leila gives me an anxious glance.

  ‘Do you really want a dad then, darling?’

  ‘Well, a bit. A nice man might come along, you know, not too fat and not with red hair.’

  Damn, that’s my ideal man out of the picture.

  ‘Not like Homer Simpson, and with lots of money and a dog. A big dog. And then you could take it in turns to go to work, and we could have a swimming pool. If I get married I’m not doing it in a church, I’m going to do it in a box office.’

  ‘I think you might mean registry office, Charlie.’

  ‘Yes, and if you were too tired to go swimming he could take me.’

  ‘Yes, darling, but you’d have to share more, you know, and if we all went out in the car then you’d have to sit in the back.’

  Charlie pauses to consider this giant flaw in his picture.

  ‘OK, what about just getting a dog then?’

  Leila chokes with laughter, and I’m hugely relieved that he doesn’t appear to be harbouring a terrible yearning for a patriarch in his life. Charlie charges off to play an imaginary pirate game which involves running into the sea up to his knees and then running out again, screaming very loudly.

  It suddenly starts to rain, and we take refuge in the Whitstable Oyster Bar. I practically have to carry Leila off the pebbles in her new sandals, and Charlie thinks this is brilliant. I’ve booked a table so we manage to get in, but the place is heaving and the waitress looks on the point of hysteria. Charlie announces he is starving, and starts looking longingly at the food on other people’s tables. If I don’t act quickly he’ll start sidling up to people and asking them if they need their chips. I manage to get the waitress to take our order, and at the last minute Charlie pipes up that he thinks he’ll have a lobster. I tell him to shut up and have fish and chips, but Leila overrules me and says she will pay, because children must be encouraged to have adventurous palates. The lobster arrives with a small dagger to crack the shell: Charlie is thrilled and sets about smashing away, and even uses the dagger to eat his chips.

  Leila and I are soon covered in bits of flying lobster, and the people on the next table stop smiling indulgently at the small boy being so grown up, and start ducking. I wrestle the dagger off him and he returns to his knife and fork, but he’s sulking with all his might until Leila asks him if he would like to try an oyster. He would, so she orders half a dozen. He slurps away, and says it’s just like drinking sea water but more chewy, and can he have another one, please? I’m half thrilled he’s being so adventurous, and half terrified he will be sick at any moment. Leila says he must always remember he had his first oysters with her. Then we all have fantastic ice-cream for pudding, and Charlie rushes back outside to the sea and his pirate game. We sit drinking coffee and watch him. I try to work out if he’ll have time to drown himself before we can belt out of the restaurant and retrieve him from the sea. I decide that we will, but only if Leila takes her new sandals off.

  The restaurant is full of families with children and babies. Some sit very happily: content to chew on a piece of bread and occasionally wave it about a bit. But others are passed around like parcels, wriggle, try to get down, throw br
ead, and generally act up. I tell Leila that I think it’s terribly unfair that some people get happy little plodders who will sit for hours, and the rest of us get stroppy little buggers who will not sit still for a minute. I used to think it was simply faulty parenting, but shortly after Charlie’s birth I realised it wasn’t. If you’ve got a stroppy one, you just have to get on with it. They should write baby books with this in mind. A Plodder at twelve months will be walking a little, his first word will be yes, and his favourite toy will be a teddy. A Stropper will be running, his first word will be no, and his favourite toys will include your hair, the contents of your handbag and the telephone – but only when you’re talking on it. As we pay the bill I give a smile of solidarity to a woman with a toddler who will only eat other people’s chips.

  We finally get Charlie back into the car, with a combination of bribery and threats. Leila makes up a fabulous story on the way home about a magical pair of pink sandals that can fly you anywhere in the world, and we end up with Charlie wearing her sandals and wishing to go to Never Never Land. Leila is very pleased with her storytelling skills, so I don’t tell her that she’ll be asked for another chapter of this story every time she sees Charlie for the next five years. I got stuck with a similar situation last year when I bribed him to throw a crab back into the sea. After about six weeks of nightly requests for another chapter of The Adventures of Charlie the Crab I was desperate, and invented a disaster on an oil rig. All the crabs had to migrate to avoid all the pollution, and left no forwarding address, and I had to buy a huge number of new story tapes to make up for the sad loss.

  Leila stays for tea, and is just about to head back to London when Charlie insists he needs another chapter of Pink Sandals before he will be able to cope with her departure. Leila looks desperate and suggests Mummy might tell him the next adventure, but Mummy says she knows nothing about pink sandals and is going to do the washing-up. Leila makes a very rude hand gesture, but settles down on the sofa for Chapter Two. She’s eventually allowed to leave, and practically sprints to her car.